Septimus Marvin had, so to speak, been the same man since infancy.

He had always looked vaguely at the world through spectacles; had always been at a loss among his contemporaries--a generation already tainted by that shallow spirit of haste which is known to-day as modernity--at a loss for a word; at a loss for a companion soul.
He was a scholar and a learned historian.

His companions were books, and he communed in spirit with writers who were dead and gone.
Had he ever been a different man his circumstances would assuredly have been other.

His wife, for instance, would in all human probability have been alive.

His avocation might have been more suited to his capabilities.