happiness, of a household; but of much effort or self-sacrifice I judge
him to have been incapable.

He was a handsome man in his stiff and military way--well made, tall,
commanding in figure and in demeanor, stately in movement. His features
were regular, his teeth and hair well preserved, especially the first,
his hands and feet aristocratically small and shapely, his manner
vaguely courteous. He was a shy rather than reserved person, for, when
once the ice was broken, his nature bubbled over very boyishly at times,
and his confidence, once bestowed, was irrevocable. Like most men of his
temperament, he was keenly susceptible to deferential flattery, and
impatient of the slightest infraction of his dignity, which he guarded
punctiliously at all points. It was more this disposition always to wait
for overtures from others, and to slightly repel their first
manifestations, from his inveterate shyness, than any settled
determination on his part, that made him such an alien from general
association. Nervous, fastidious, exacting--what had he in common with
the texture of the new society in which he found himself, and what right
had he to fancy himself neglected where the "go-ahead" principle alone
was recognized, and time was esteemed too precious to waste in ceremony?

Yet this injured feeling pursued him through life and made one of his
peculiarities, so that he drew more and more closely, as years passed
on, into his own shell, which may be said to have comprised his
household, his comforts, his hobbies, and his narrow neighborhood, in
which he was idolized, and the sympathy of which was very soothing to
his fastidious pride.

Nothing so fosters haughtiness and egotism as a sphere like this, and it
may be doubted whether the crowned heads of the world receive more