The hero, Charalois, is drawn as of a gentle, meditative, temperate, and self-possessed disposition, in strong and effective contrast to his friend. Though his military exploits are spoken of with admiration, and Romont testifies that he can “pursue a foe like lightning,” he betrays a certain readiness to yield to discouragement scarce to be expected in the son of the great general. In consequence of these facts, he has been described by some (notably Cunningham, in his Edition of Gifford, Introduction, p. xiii;--cf. also Phelan, p. 61; and Beck, pp. 22-3) as “a Hamlet whose mind has not yet been sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought,” and his long silence at the opening of Act I is compared to that of the Danish Prince on his first appearance. But, in reality, excess of pride is the chief reason of Charalois’ backwardness on this occasion, and thereafter he acts promptly and efficiently always. The same over-sensitive pride continues to manifest itself throughout the play--when he is confronted with Rochfort’s generosity; when he finds (III, i, 365 ff.) that it is he who is the object of the jests of Novall Junior and his satellites (though scarce a breath earlier he has chided Romont for noticing the yapping of such petty curs); and in the viscissitudes of the catastrophe and its consequences. A harmonious twin-birth with his pride, at once proceeding from it, bound up with it, and on occasion over-weighing its scruples, is an extreme punctiliousness at every turn to the dictates of that peculiarly Spanish imperative, “the point of honor,”--a consideration so prominent throughout the play as to have convinced many critics that the source of the story, although still undiscovered, must have been Spanish. These two traits--pride and an adherence to “the point of honor,” are almost invariably the mainsprings of Charalois’ conduct. His pride holds him back from supplicating in behalf of his father the clemency of the unworthy ministers of the law, till he is persuaded by Romont that honor not only permits but requires that he do so; he feels that honor demands that he sacrifice himself to secure his father’s burial, and he does it; that honor demands that he put away his friend in loyalty to his wife, and he does it; that honor demands that he slay the adulteress--and he does it; he even consents to lay bare the details of his ignominious wrong before the eyes of men, because he is brought to believe that “the point of honor” calls for a justification of his course and the holding of it up as an example to the world. It is a striking and consistent portrait--how unlike the usual conventionally noble hero of romantic drama!