IV.

When a family is possessed of large landed property, the individual of
that family who shows least interest in its welfare; who is least fond
of home, least connected by his own sympathies with his relatives,
least ready to learn his duties or admit his responsibilities, is
often that very individual who is to succeed to the family
inheritance--the eldest son.

My brother Ralph was no exception to this remark. We were educated
together. After our education was completed, I never saw him, except
for short periods. He was almost always on the continent, for some
years after he left college. And when he returned definitely to
England, he did not return to live under our roof. Both in town and
country he was our visitor, not our inmate.

I recollect him at school--stronger, taller, handsomer than I was; far
beyond me in popularity among the little community we lived with; the
first to lead a daring exploit, the last to abandon it; now at the
bottom of the class, now at the top--just that sort of gay,
boisterous, fine-looking, dare-devil boy, whom old people would
instinctively turn round and smile after, as they passed him by in a
morning walk.

Then, at college, he became illustrious among rowers and cricketers,
renowned as a pistol shot, dreaded as a singlestick player. No wine
parties in the university were such wine parties as his; tradesmen
gave him the first choice of everything that was new; young ladies in
the town fell in love with him by dozens; young tutors with a tendency
to dandyism, copied the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat;