his greatest pleasure; yet, in spite of his fervid temperament--in
appearance fervid, at all events--he never seemed to fall in love.
Some there were who said that the self he went so far to discover
would prove to have a female form. Perhaps there was truth in this;
perhaps he sought, whether consciously or no, the ideal woman. None
of those with whom he companioned had a charge of light wooing to
bring against him, though one or two would not have held it a
misfortune if they had tempted him to forget his speculations and
declare that he had reached his goal. But his striving always seemed
to be for something remote from the world about him. His capacity
for warm feeling, itself undeniable, was never dissociated from that
impersonal zeal which was the characteristic of his expressions in
verse. In fact, he had written no love-poem.

Annabel and her father observed a change in him since his last
visit. This was the first time that he had come without an express
invitation, and they gathered from his speech that he had at length
found some definite object for his energies. His friends had for a
long time been asking what he meant to do with his life. It did not
appear that he purposed literary effort, though it seemed the
natural outlet for his eager thought; and of the career of politics
he at all times spoke with contempt. Was he one of the men, never so
common as nowadays, who spend their existence in canvassing the
possibilities that lie before them and delay action till they find
that the will is paralysed? One did not readily set Egremont in that
class, principally, no doubt, because he was so free from the
offensive forms of self-consciousness which are wont to stamp such
men. The pity of it, too, if talents like his were suffered to rust
unused; the very genuineness of his idealism made one believe in him
and look with confidence to his future.