What has happened to him?
Has he been disappointed in love?
But that 's none of my business.

I congratulate him on having become a practical man." Roderick, however, was less to be congratulated than Gloriani had taken it into his head to believe.

He was discontented with his work, he applied himself to it by fits and starts, he declared that he did n't know what was coming over him; he was turning into a man of moods.

"Is this of necessity what a fellow must come to"-- he asked of Rowland, with a sort of peremptory flash in his eye, which seemed to imply that his companion had undertaken to insure him against perplexities and was not fulfilling his contract--"this damnable uncertainty when he goes to bed at night as to whether he is going to wake up in a working humor or in a swearing humor?
Have we only a season, over before we know it, in which we can call our faculties our own?
Six months ago I could stand up to my work like a man, day after day, and never dream of asking myself whether I felt like it.

But now, some mornings, it 's the very devil to get going.