th him, and Ernest became the fashion before he was conscious
of the distinction. But he had rightly foreboded. He had commenced life
too soon; he was disappointed; he found some persons he could admire,
some whom he could like, but none with whom he could grow intimate,
or for whom he could feel an interest. Neither his heart nor his
imagination was touched; all appeared to him like artificial machines;
he was discontented with things like life, but in which something or
other was wanting. He more than ever recalled the brilliant graces of
Valerie de Ventadour, which had thrown a charm over the most frivolous
circles; he even missed the perverse and fantastic vanity of Castruccio.
The mediocre poet seemed to him at least less mediocre than the
worldlings about him. Nay, even the selfish good spirits and dry
shrewdness of Lumley Ferrers would have been an acceptable change to
the dull polish and unrevealed egotism of jealous wits and party
politicians. "If these are the flowers of the parterre, what must be the
weeds?" said Maltravers to himself, returning from a party at which he
had met half a score of the most orthodox lions.

He began to feel the aching pain of satiety.

But the winter glided away--the season commenced, and Maltravers was
whirled on with the rest into the bubbling vortex.

CHAPTER III.

"And crowds commencing mere vexation,
Retirement sent its invitation."--SHENSTONE.

THE tench, no doubt, considers the pond in which he lives as the Great
World. There is no place, however stagnant, which is not the great world
to the creatures that move about, in it. People who have lived all their
lives in a village still talk of the world as if they had ever seen
it! An old woman in a hovel does not put her nose out of her door on a
Sunday without thinking she is going amongst the pomps and vanities
of the great world. _Ergo_, the great world is to all of us the little
circle in which we live. But as fine people set the fashion, so the
circle of fine people is called the Great World _par excellence_. Now
this great world is not a bad thing when we thoroughly understand it;
and the London great world is at least as good as any other. But then
we scarcely do understand that or anything else in our _beaux
jours_,--which, if they are sometimes the most exquisite, are also often
the most melancholy and the most wasted portion of our life. Maltravers
had not yet found out either _the set_ that pleased him or