astward, wandering into
warehouse and shipping quarters skirting the river, hitherto quite
unknown to him, and pursuing in an idle, inconsequent fashion his
meditations. He established in his mind the proposition that since an
excess of enjoyment was impossible--since one could not derive a great
block of happiness from the satisfaction of the ordinary appetites, but
at the most could only gather a little from each--the desirable thing
was to multiply as much as might be those tastes and whims and fancies
which passed for appetites, and thus expand the area of possible
gratification.

This seemed very logical indeed, but it did not apply itself to his
individual needs with much facility. What did he want to do that he had
not done? It was difficult for him to say. Perhaps it was chandlers'
signs and windows about him, and the indefinable seafaring preoccupation
suggested by the high-walled, narrow streets, which raised the question
of a yacht in his mind. Did he want a yacht? He could recall having once
dwelt with great fondness upon such a project: doubtless it would still
be full of attractions for him. He liked the water, and the water
liked him--and he was better able now than formerly to understand how
luxurious existence can be made in modern private ships. He decided that
he would have a yacht--and then perceived that the decision brought no
exhilaration. He was no happier than before. He could decide that he
would have anything he chose to name--and it would in no whit lighten
his mood. The yacht might be as grand as High Thorpe, and relatively as
spacious and well ordered, but would he not grow as tired of the one as
he had of the other?

He stopped short at this blunt self-expression of something he had never
admitted to himself. Was he indeed tired of High Thorpe? He had assured
his wife to the contrary yesterday. He reiterated the assurance to his
own mind now. It was instead that he was tired of himself. He carried
a weariness about with him, which looked at everything with apathetic
eyes, and cared for nothing. Some nameless paralysis had settled upon
his capacity for amusement and enjoyment, and atrophied it. He had
had the power to expand his life to the farthest boundaries of rich
experience and sensation, and he had deliberately shrunk into a sort of
herbaceous nonentity, whom nobody knew or cared about. He might have had
London at his beck and call, and yet of all that the metropolis might
mean to a