He was fond of art, and had a marked talent for painting; but as he never extended his labours or his studies beyond the amateur’s easy course, he was not likely to rise above the amateur’s level. Why should a man who is sure to inherit a million submit to the drudgery of severe technical training in order to take the bread out of the mouths of painters who must needs live by their art? Gerald painted a little, now landscape, now figure, as the spirit moved him; sculptured a little; poetised a little; set a little song of his own to music now and then to please Lina; and was altogether accomplished and interesting. But he would have liked to be great, to have had his name bandied about for praise or blame upon the lips of men; and it irked him somewhat to know and feel that he was not of the stuff which makes great men; or, in other words, that he entirely lacked that power of sustained industry which can alone achieve greatness. For his own inward satisfaction, and for Lina’s sake, he would have liked to distinguish himself. But the pathway of life had been made fatally smooth for him; it lay through a land of flowery pastures and running brooks, a happy valley of all earthly delights; and how could any man be resolute enough to turn aside from all sensuous pleasures to climb rugged rocky hills in pursuit of some perchance unattainable spiritual delight? There was so much that wealth could give him, that it would have been hardly natural for Gerald Goring to live laborious days for the sake of the one thing which wealth could not give. He had just that dreamy poetic temperament which can clothe sensual joys with the glory and radiance of the intellectual. Politics, statecraft, he frankly detested; science he considered an insult to poetry. He would have liked the stir and excitement, the fever and glory of war; but not the daily dry-as-dust work of a soldier’s life, or the hardships of campaigning. He was not an unbeliever, but his religious belief was too vague for a Churchman. Having failed to distinguish himself as a poet, and being too idle to succeed as a painter, he saw no royal road to fame open to him; and so was content to fall back from the race, and enjoy the delicious repose of an utterly aimless life. He pictured to himself a future in which there should be no crumpled rose-leaf; a wife in all things perfect, fondly loved, admired, respected; children as lovely as a poet’s dream of childhood; an existence passed amidst the fairest scenes of earth, with such endless variety of background as unlimited wealth can give. He would not, like Tiberius, build himself a dozen villas upon one rock-bound island; but he would make his temporary nest in every valley and by every lake, striking his tents before ever satiety could dull the keen edge of enjoyment.