Strong characters, heated passions, black vices, deep prejudices, grievous misfortunes, and even utterly ridiculous persons had disappeared.

The country he had been reared in still thrilled with patriotism and meant something when it muttered threats to kill its tyrant--meant so much that the Czar did not pass through a Polish town until the police and military had "ensured an enthusiastic reception." But in France, tyrants and love of country were mere words to draw applause from the country cousins in a popular theatre.
Felix, though a youth, stood a head and shoulders above the level of the weaklings excluded as "finished" from these commonplace educational institutions--schools called colleges and colleges called universities, resulting necessarily from the proclamation of man's equality.

He sickened at seeing the neutral-tinted lake of society, with "shallow-swells," more painful to the right-minded than an ocean in a tempest.
He soon became like the French, but not so his wife.

She suffered the change of her unpronounceable name, being euphonized as "Cesarine," smilingly, but life at home in a demure and tranquil suburb little suited the young meteor who had flashed across Germany.

Felix saw with dismay that domestic bliss was not that which she enjoyed.