Ah! there was the rub; it was the having nothing more left to wish for that threatened to be Carlo’s bane—to weigh him down with satiety, and oppress him with a sense of life accomplished. De Vaux laboured under a touch of the same complaint, only it took a higher form in the man than in the dog, and De Vaux and all his friends gave it another name. They made out that De Vaux, with his gifts and prospects, was rendered so difficult to satisfy, while he had such a craving after perfection, that the whole machinery of history and society disheartened and distressed him, until he could not make up his mind—and it did not really seem worth while to make it up—to join any political party, conservative or reforming, or take up any calling or work in life, beyond dreaming over what might have been, and deploring what was. De Vaux was not unlike Carlo in body and mind, if you make allowance for the fact that the man was royally endowed compared to the dog. The young lord was a fine handsome young fellow, more elegant than muscular, in spite of the muscular education he had received both at his public school and his university, yet quite manly enough to despise sybarite indulgences and face hardships when they came in the way of his sport or travels. What was enervated in him had to do with his excessive fastidiousness and his want of hopefulness, his mental and moral languor. He was sufficiently thoughtful always, and courteously considerate when one came across him personally—so kindly that he would not have harmed a fly—always unless in the way of sport. De Vaux was grieved to disappoint his noble parents, who would have liked him, with his rank and talents, to enter the world and do his devoir, and win his spurs gallantly. But to him the game was not worth the candle; and when he regarded his fellow-players and the weapons he must use, he shrank unconquerably from the contest. Altogether, he was of as little use in the toiling, struggling world—except it might be in affording an example of refraining from the indulgence of gross appetites which he did not possess, and of pursuing cultivation for its own sake—as one can well imagine in the case of a highly responsible man.