He had no desire to make money, he had money enough; and although he knew, and was frequently reminded, that a young man is the better for a fixed occupation, he could discover no moral advantage in driving a lucrative trade.

Yet few young men of means and leisure ever made less of a parade of idleness, and indeed idleness in any degree could hardly be laid at the door of a young man who took life in the serious, attentive, reasoning fashion of our friend.

It often seemed to Mallet that he wholly lacked the prime requisite of a graceful flaneur--the simple, sensuous, confident relish of pleasure.

He had frequent fits of extreme melancholy, in which he declared that he was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.

He was neither an irresponsibly contemplative nature nor a sturdily practical one, and he was forever looking in vain for the uses of the things that please and the charm of the things that sustain.