Desire, which usually sets free the tongue, only petrified his powers of speech.

Thus it happened that Jean-Jacques Rouget was solitary and sought solitude because there alone he was at his ease.
The doctor had seen, too late for remedy, the havoc wrought in his son's life by a temperament and a character of this kind.

He would have been glad to get him married; but to do that, he must deliver him over to an influence that was certain to become tyrannical, and the doctor hesitated.

Was it not practically giving the whole management of the property into the hands of a stranger, some unknown girl?
The doctor knew how difficult it was to gain true indications of the moral character of a woman from any study of a young girl.

So, while he continued to search for a daughter-in-law whose sentiments and education offered some guarantees for the future, he endeavored to push his son into the ways of avarice; meaning to give the poor fool a sort of instinct that might eventually take the place of intelligence.
He trained him, in the first place, to mechanical habits of life; and instilled into him fixed ideas as to the investment of his revenues: and he spared him the chief difficulties of the management of a fortune, by leaving his estates all in good order, and leased for long periods.
Nevertheless, a fact which was destined to be of paramount importance in the life of the poor creature escaped the notice of the wily old doctor.
Timidity is a good deal like dissimulation, and is equally secretive.
Jean-Jacques was passionately in love with the Rabouilleuse.