Yet I did not know what I wanted.

I was simply in torment." The truth is that, while he had always cherished ideals higher than are usual, still they were not such as need set him apart from the common life of men.

But now he became suddenly averse from certain pursuits and pleasures, not only good in themselves, but consonant to his previous dispositions.

The road to wealth lay open before him, but his feet refused to tread it.

He was invincibly drawn to poverty, solitude, sacrifice; modes of life from which he shrank by nature, and which led to no goal that he could see or understand.