Women -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
His desire was knowledge; his passion truth; his eager and
never-sleeping endeavour was to inform and to satisfy his understanding.
Villiers waited on him, as an inferior spirit may attend on an
archangel, and gathered from him the crumbs of his knowledge, with
gladness and content. He could not force his boyish mind to similar
exertions, nor feel that keen thirst for knowledge that kept alive his
cousin's application, though he could admire and love these with
fervour, when exhibited in another. It was indeed a singular fact, that
this constant contemplation of so superior a being, added to his
careless turn of mind. Not to be like Horatio was to be nothing--to be
like him was impossible. So he was content to remain one of the
half-ignorant, uninformed creatures most men are, and to found his pride
upon his affection for his cousin, who, being several years older, might
well be advanced even beyond his emulation. Horatio himself did not
desire to be imitated by the light-hearted Edward; he was too familiar
with the exhaustion, the sadness, the disappointment of his pursuits; he
could not be otherwise himself, but he thought all that he aspired
after, was well exchanged for the sparkling eyes, exhaustless spirits,
and buoyant step of Villiers. We none of us wish to exchange our
identity for that of another; yet we are never satisfied with ourselves.
The unknown has always a charm, and unless blinded by miserable vanity,
we know ourselves too well to appreciate our especial characteristics at
a very high rate. When Horace, after deep midnight study, felt his brain
still working like a thousand millwheels, that cannot be stopped; when
sleep fled from him, and yet his exhausted mind could no longer continue
its labours--he envied the light slumbers of his cousin, which followed
exercise and amusement. Villiers loved and revered him; and he felt
drawn closer to him than towards any of his brothers, and strove to
refine his taste and regulate his conduct through his admonitions and
example, while he abstained from following him in the steep and thorny
path he had selected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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