uch there was of vanity and of
evil in the unrest which rules our time. He was possessed by that
turbid idealism which, in the tumult of a day without conscious
guidance, is the peril of gentle souls. Looking out upon the world, he
seemed to himself to be the one idle man in a toiling and aspiring
multitude; for, however astray the energy of most, activity was visible
on every side, and in activity--so he told himself--lay man's only
hope. He alone did nothing. Wearing his title like a fool's cap, he
mooned in by-paths which had become a maze. Was it not the foolish
title that bemused and disabled him? Without it, would he not long ago
have gone to work like other men, and had his part in the onward
struggle? Discontented with himself, ill at ease in his social
position, reproachfully minded towards the ancestors who had ruined
him, he fell into that most dangerous mood of the cultured and
conscientious man, a feverish inclination for practical experiment in
life.

His age was two and thirty. A decade ago he had dreamt of
distinguishing himself in the Chamber of Peers; why should poverty bar
the way of intellect and zeal? Experience taught him that, though money
might not be indispensable to such a career as he imagined, the lack of
it was only to be supplied by powers such as he certainly did not
possess. Abashed at the thought of his presumption he withdrew
altogether from the seat to which his birth entitled him, and at the
same time ceased to appear in Society. He had the temper of a student,
and among his books he soon found consolation for the first
disappointments of youth. Study, however, led him by degrees to all the
questions rife in the world about him; with the inevitable result that
his maturer thought turned back upon things he fancied himself to have
outgrown. His time had been wasted. At thirty-two all he had clearly
learnt was a regret for vanished years.

He resisted as a temptation the philosophic quietism which had been his
strength and his pride. From the pages of Marcus Aurelius, which he had
almost by heart, one passage only was allowed to dwell with him: "When
thou art hard to be stirred up and awaked out of thy sleep, admonish
thyself and call to mind that to perform actions tending to the common
good is that which thine own proper constitution, and that which the
nature of man, do require." Morning and night, the question with him
became, what could he do in the cause of civilisation? And abo