And when, from the recesses of his desk, she had routed out (in company with sundry more, rather contrasting with a mother's pure advice) a few of her own letters, which had not yet been destroyed, she would doat by the hour on these proofs of his affection.
And then, her spirits were so low; and his choice smuggled Hollands so requisite to screw them up to par again; and no sooner had they rallied, than they would once more begin to droop; so she cried a good deal, and kept her bed; and very often did not remember exactly, whether she was lying down there, or figuring on the Esplanade with Julian, and--all that sort of thing: accordingly, it is not to be wondered at if, in Aunt Green's double-house, the general and Emily saw very little of her, and during all this illness, had almost forgotten her existence.
Nevertheless, she was alive still, and as vast as ever--though a course of strong waters had shattered her nerves considerably; even more so, than her real mother's grief at Julian's protracted absence.
Never had he been heard of since he left, hard heart; though he might have guessed a mother's sorrow, and was not far away, and often lingered near the house in strange disguises.

It would have been easy for him, in some clever way or other, latch-key and all, to have gained access to her, and comforted her, and given her some real proof, that all the love she had shed on him had not been utterly thrown away; but he didn't--he didn't; and I know not of a darker trait in Julian's whole career; he was insensible to love--a mother's love.
For love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man; when all the rest had failed.

Reason he parries; Fear he answers blow to blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but Love, that sun against whose melting beams the Winter cannot stand, that soft-subduing slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human creature in a million--not a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose clay-heart is hardened against love.
Yet was Julian one of those select ones; an awful instance of that possible, that actual, though happily that scarcest of all characters, a man, "Black, with _no_ virtue, and a thousand crimes." The amiable villain--one whose generosity redeems his guilt, whose kindliness outweighs his folly, or whose beauty charms the eye to overlook his baseness--this too common hero is an object, an example fraught with perilous interest.

Charles Duval, the polite; Paul Clifford, the handsome; Richard Turpin, brave and true; Jack Sheppard, no ignoble mind and loving still his mother; these, and such as these, with Schiller's '_Robbers_' and the like, are dangerous to gaze on, as Germany, if not England too, remembers well.

But, not more true to life, though far less common to be met with, is Julian's incorrigible mind: one, in whose life are no white days; one, on whose heart are no bright spots; when Heaven's pity spoke to him, he ridiculed; as, when His threatenings thundered, he defied.