In the arrogance of his heart he said, "I can defy the future." He believed in the boast of the vain old sage,--"I am a world to myself!" In the wild career through which his later manhood had passed, it is true that he had not carried his philosophy into a rejection of the ordinary world.
The shock occasioned by the death of Florence yielded gradually to time and change; and he had passed from the deserts of Africa and the East to the brilliant cities of Europe.

But neither his heart nor his reason had ever again been enslaved by his passions.

Never again had he known the softness of affection.

Had he done so, the ice had been thawed, and the fountain had flowed once more into the great deeps.

He had returned to England,--he scarce knew wherefore, or with what intent, certainly not with any idea of entering again upon the occupations of active life; it was, perhaps, only the weariness of foreign scenes and unfamiliar tongues, and the vague, unsettled desire of change, that brought him back to the fatherland.