He hated the country now, and almost told himself that he hated all whom it contained.

How miserable was his lot, that he should have bound himself in the opening of his splendour, in the first days of a career that might have been so splendid, to misfortune that was squalid and mean as this.

To him, to one placed by circumstances as he was placed, it was squalid and mean.

By a few soft words spoken to a poor girl whom he had chanced to find among the rocks he had so bound himself with vile manacles, had so crippled, hampered and fettered himself, that he was forced to renounce all the glories of his station.

Wealth almost unlimited was at his command,--and rank, and youth, and such personal gifts of appearance and disposition as best serve to win general love.
He had talked to his brother of his unfitness for his earldom; but he could have blazoned it forth at Scroope and up in London, with the best of young lords, and have loved well to do so.