He is strong and able, and yet, unless the miracle of miracles happens, he will never do anything.

Two hundred years ago he might have led some mad Jacobite plot to success.

Three hundred and he might have been another Raleigh.
Six hundred, and there would have been a new crusade.

But as it is, he is out of harmony with his times; life is too easy and mannered; the field for a man's courage is in petty and recondite things, and Lewie is not fitted to understand it.

And all this, you see, spells a kind of cowardice: and if you have a friend who is a hero out of joint, a great man smothered in the wrong sort of civilization, and all the while one who is building up for himself with the world and in his own heart the reputation of a coward, you naturally grow hot and bitter." The lady looked curiously at the speaker.