Our cousin carried all the collegiate honors--but without exciting
jealousy or envy. He was so really the best, that his companions were
anxious he should have the sign of his superiority. He studied hard,
he thought much, and wrote well. There was no evidence of any blight
upon his ambition or career, but after living quietly in the country
for some time, he went to Europe and travelled. When he returned, he
resolved to study law, but presently relinquished it. Then he
collected materials for a history, but suffered them to lie unused.
Somehow the mainspring was gone. He used to come and pass weeks with
Prue and me. His coming made the children happy, for he sat with
them, and talked and played with them all day long, as one of
themselves. They had no quarrels when our cousin the curate was their
playmate, and their laugh was hardly sweeter than his as it rang down
from the nursery. Yet sometimes, as Prue was setting the tea-table,
and I sat musing by the fire, she stopped and turned to me as we heard
that sound, and her eyes filled with tears.

He was interested in all subjects that interested others. His fine
perception, his clear sense, his noble imagination, illuminated every
question. His friends wanted him to go into political life, to write a
great book, to do something worthy of his powers. It was the very
thing he longed to do himself; but he came and played with the
children in the nursery, and the great deed was undone. Often, in the
long winter evenings, we talked of the past, while Titbottom sat
silent by, and Prue was busily knitting. He told us the incidents of
his early passion--but he did not moralize about it, nor sigh, nor
grow moody. He turned to Prue, sometimes, and jested gently, and often
quoted from the old song of George Withers, I believe: