To those who reflected on the various qualities of his mind, the picture it presented seemed to be composed of a variety and contrast of colours rarely to be met with, but all so highly varnished, that their very brightness confounded. It seemed a mass of contradiction, by some extraneous power compressed into an indefinable whole. His virtues and his vices trod so closely on each other, that it was difficult to draw the line of separation between them, and both appeared to owe their origin either to the temporary error, or general superiority of his judgment; all his actions seemed to proceed only from his head--his heart was never called into play. It was difficult to decide whether the finer feelings were really extinct in his breast; or whether, dreading the power passion might usurp, he never for one moment permitted it to assume the reins. In his general establishment he was magnificent;--in the detail of its arrangements almost parsimonious. His charity was ostentatious rather than benign; for, though his name graced every list of public contribution, he never came forward in his own person as the poor man's benefactor. None who experienced the urbanity of Lord Osselstone's manners could believe him to be his own individual enemy; and yet no person could repose in the calm confidence, that Lord Osselstone was his friend. It was evident, that, had he not been a courtier, he would have been a misanthropist. In conversation he was generally reserved; but, if circumstances called upon him for exertion, his abilities seemed to rise with the occasion, and his variety of information, his elegance of language, and even the occasional playfulness of his imagination, made him one of the most agreeable of companions. In all Lord Osselstone did, in all Lord Osselstone said, in all he looked, there might be discovered an intensity of thought; which, far from being confined to the surface, seemed to increase in profundity the deeper it was examined. His character, like his manner, was not to be deciphered by vulgar eyes. He was generally serious--never dull; and at times his wit was even sportive. Yet Lord Osselstone, when most gay, could scarcely be deemed cheerful. At the moments of his greatest exhilaration, when an admiring audience hung upon his words, or a more favoured few caught the sparks of animation from the meteor that flashed before them, deriving all their temporary brilliancy from the electric fire of his talents; even at those moments, Lord Osselstone seemed scarcely happy;--the brightness of the emanation was for them;--the dark body remained his own; and few had skill or inclination to penetrate the dense medium that seemed still to surround and obscure his soul.