Roseville's, and it was seldom more than once a week that he was seen
even there. Lonely, and singular in mind and habits, he lived in the
world like a person occupied by a separate object, and possessed of a
separate existence, from that of his fellow-beings. He was luxurious and
splendid, beyond all men, in his habits, rather than his tastes. His
table groaned beneath a weight of gold, too costly for the daily service
even of a prince; but he had no pleasure in surveying it. His wines and
viands were of the most exquisite description; but he scarcely tasted
them. Yet, what may seem inconsistent, he was averse to all ostentation
and show in the eyes of others. He admitted very few into his society--no
one so intimately as myself. I never once saw more than three persons at
his table. He seemed, in his taste for furniture, in his love of
literature, and his pursuit after fame, to be, as he himself said,
eternally endeavouring to forget and eternally brought back to
remembrance.

"I pity that man even more than I admire him," said Vincent to me, one
night when we were walking home from Glanville's house. "His is, indeed,
the disease nulla medicabilis herba. Whether it is the past or the
present that afflicts him--whether it is the memory of past evil, or the
satiety of present good, he has taken to his heart the bitterest
philosophy of life. He does not reject its blessings--he gathers them
around him, but as a stone gathers moss--cold, hard, unsoftened by the
freshness and the greenness which surround it. As a circle can only touch
a circle in one place, every thing that life presents to him, wherever it
comes from--to whatever portion of his soul it is applied--can find but
one point of contact; and that is the soreness of affliction: whether it
is the oblivio or the otium that he requires, he finds equally that he is
for ever in want of one treasure:--'neque gemmis neque purpura venale nec
auro.'"