the species
of amusement that really amused. Therefore he drifted on and about
the vast whirlpool, making plenty of friends--going to balls and
dinners--and bored with both as men are who have no object in society.
Now the way society is enjoyed is to have a pursuit, a _metier_ of
some kind, and then to go into the world, either to make the individual
object a social pleasure, or to obtain a reprieve from some toilsome
avocation. Thus, if you are a politician--politics at once make an
object in your closet, and a social tie between others and yourself when
you are in the world. The same may be said of literature, though in a
less degree; and though, as fewer persons care about literature than
politics, your companions must be more select. If you are very young,
you are fond of dancing; if you are very profligate, perhaps you are
fond of flirtations with your friend's wife. These last are objects in
their way: but they don't last long, and, even with the most frivolous,
are not occupations that satisfy the whole mind and heart, in which
there is generally an aspiration after something useful. It is not
vanity alone that makes a man of the _mode_ invent a new bit or give
his name to a new kind of carriage; it is the influence of that mystic
yearning after utility, which is one of the master-ties between the
individual and the species.

Maltravers was not happy--that is a lot common enough; but he was not
amused--and that is a sentence more insupportable. He lost a great part
of his sympathy with Cleveland, for, when a man is not amused, he feels
an involuntary contempt for those who are. He fancies they are pleased
with trifles which his superior wisdom is compelled to disdain.
Cleveland was of that age when we generally grow social--for by being
rubbed long and often against the great loadstone of society, we obtain,
in a thousand little minute points, an attraction in common with our
fellows. Their petty sorrows and small joys--their objects of interest
or employment, at some time or other have been ours. We gather up a vast
collection of moral and mental farthings of exchange: and we scarcely
find any intellect too poor, but what we can deal with it in some
way. But in youth, we are egotists and sentimentalists, and Maltravers
belonged to the fraternity who employ

"The heart in passion and the head in rhymes."

At length--just when London begins to grow most pleasant--when
flirtations become tender, and water-p