Clarence Glyndon was a young man of small but independent fortune.

He had, early in life, evinced considerable promise in the art of painting, and rather from enthusiasm than the want of a profession, he had resolved to devote himself to a career which in England has been seldom entered upon by persons who can live on their own means.

Without being a poet, Glyndon had also manifested a graceful faculty for verse, which had contributed to win his entry into society above his birth.

Spoiled and flattered from his youth upward, his natural talents were in some measure relaxed by indolence and that worldly and selfish habit of thought which frivolous companionship often engenders, and which is withering alike to stern virtue and high genius.

The luxuriance of his fancy was unabated; but the affections, which are the life of fancy, had grown languid and inactive.