No more poetry for him.
It is thus that a character feeble for action, but mystic in imagination, acts in the petulance of youth when it is pushed into a clashing, claiming world.

In this mood a year passes by in vague content.

Yet a little grain of conscience makes him sour.

He is vexed that his youth is gone with all its promised glow, pleasure and action; and the vexation is suddenly deepened by seeing a great change in the aspect of nature.

"What," he thinks, when he sees the whole valley filled with Mincio in flood, "can Nature in this way renew her youth, and not I?
Alas! I cannot so renew myself; youth is over." But if youth be dead, manhood remains; and the curiosity and individuality of the age stir in him again.