His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happen but once.

He said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation.
With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded.

He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism.

His friends at present judged him more cheerful, and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their heads knowingly, that he would recover his health.

His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.
It was very probably this sweet-tasting property of the observed thing in itself that was mainly concerned in Ralph's quickly-stirred interest in the advent of a young lady who was evidently not insipid.