Maltravers did not yet feel this, but he was sensible of some intellectual want.

His ideas, his memories, his dreams crowded thick and confused upon him; he wished to arrange them in order, and he could not.

He was overpowered by the unorganised affluence of his own imagination and intellect.

He had often, even as a child, fancied that he was formed to do something in the world, but he had never steadily considered what it was to be, whether he was to become a man of books or a man of deeds.

He had written poetry when it poured irresistibly from the fount of emotion within, but looked at his effusions with a cold and neglectful eye when the enthusiasm had passed away.
Maltravers was not much gnawed by the desire of fame--perhaps few men of real genius are, until artificially worked up to it.