And was he not?
His life was speeding by; already the best years were gone, the years of youth and force and hope--nay, hope he could not be said to have known, unless it were for a short space when first the purpose of his being dawned upon consciousness; and the end of that had been bitter enough.

The purpose he knew was frustrated.

The 'Might have been,' which is 'also called No more, Too late, Farewell,' often stared him in the eyes with those unchanging orbs of ghastliness, chilling the flow of his blood and making life the cruellest of mockeries.

Yet he was not driven to that kind of resentment which makes the revolutionary spirit.

His personality was essentially that of a student; conservative instincts were stronger in him than the misery which accused his fortune.