This is nothing more than the tendency of the generations downward from the ideal.
The springs that moved Wilfrid upon the present occasion were simple.
We will strip him of his heroic trappings for one fleeting instant, and show them.
Jumping briskly from a restless bed, his first act was to address his features to the looking-glass: and he saw surely the most glorious sight for a hero of the knightly age that could possibly have been offered.
The battle of the previous night was written there in one eloquent big lump, which would have passed him current as hero from end to end of the land in the great days of old.

These are the tea-table days.

His preference was for the visage of Wilfrid Pole, which he saw not.

At the aspect of the fearful mask, this young man stared, and then cursed; and then, by an odd transition, he was reminded, as by the force of a sudden gust, that Emilia's hair was redolent of pipe-smoke.
His remark was, "I can't be seen in this state." His thought (a dim reminiscence of poetical readings): "Ambrosial locks indeed!" A sad irony, which told that much gold-leaf had peeled away from her image in his heart.
Wilfrid was a gallant fellow, with good stuff in him.

But, he was young.
Ponder on that pregnant word, for you are about to see him grow.