This English home, was it not surely the best result of civilisation in an age devoted to material progress?
Here was peace, here was scope for the kindliest emotions.

Upon him--the born rebel, the scorner of average mankind, the consummate egoist--this atmosphere exercised an influence more tranquillising, more beneficent, than even the mood of disinterested study.

In the world to which sincerity would condemn him, only the worst elements of his character found nourishment and range; here he was humanised, made receptive of all gentle sympathies.

Heroism might point him to an unending struggle with adverse conditions, but how was heroism possible without faith?
Absolute faith he had none; he was essentially a negativist, guided by the mere relations of phenomena.

Nothing easier than to contemn the mode of life represented by this wealthy middle class; but compare it with other existences conceivable by a thinking man, and it was emphatically good.