But without something of the aptitudes of a prig the character which the author intended could not have been drawn.

There was to be courage,--military courage,--and that propensity to fighting which the tone of the age demanded in a finished gentleman.

Esmond therefore is ready enough to use his sword.

But at the same time he has to live as becomes one whose name is in some degree under a cloud; for though he be not in truth an illegitimate offshoot of the noble family which is his, and though he knows that he is not so, still he has to live as though he were.

He becomes a soldier, and it was just then that our army was accustomed "to swear horribly in Flanders." But Esmond likes his books, and cannot swear or drink like other soldiers.