Many are through vanity magnanimous, and benevolent from the
selfishness of fame but so far from seeking applause where he bestowed
favour, Mordaunt had sedulously shrouded himself in darkness and
disguise. And by that increasing propensity to quiet, so often found
among those addicted to lofty or abstruse contemplation, he had
conquered the ambition of youth with the philosophy of a manhood that
had forestalled the affections of age. Many, in short, have become
great or good to the community by individual motives easily resolved
into common and earthly elements of desire; but they who inquire
diligently into human nature have not often the exalted happiness to
record a character like Mordaunt's, actuated purely by a systematic
principle of love, which covered mankind, as heaven does earth, with
an atmosphere of light extending to the remotest corners and
penetrating the darkest recesses.

It was one of those violent and gusty evenings which give to an
English autumn something rude, rather than gentle, in its
characteristics, that Mordaunt and Clarence sat together,

"And sowed the hours with various seeds of talk."

The young Isabel, the only living relic of the departed one, sat by
her father's side upon the floor; and though their discourse was far
beyond the comprehension of her years, yet did she seem to listen with
a quiet and absorbed attention. In truth, child as she was, she so
loved, and almost worshipped, her father that the very tones of his
voice had in them a charm which could always vibrate, as it were, to
her heart; and hush her into silence; and that melancholy and deep
though somewhat low voice, when it swelled or trembled with thought,--
which in Mordaunt was feeling,--made her sad, she knew not why; and