The mere possibility of a fresh awakening of feeling filled him with aversion.

At the moment he had as profound a distrust as Sarah of the immaterial elements; and looking ahead, he saw his future stretching before him as firm and flat as the turnpike which he was approaching.

Delight and despair were equally distasteful to him.

He shrank as instinctively from the thought of love as a man shrinks from re-opening an old wound which is still sensitive to the touch, though it has ceased to ache.

And so prone is human nature to affirm its inherent belief in the eternity of the present, that he was assured, not only that this was the most desirable point of view he had ever reached, but that it was entirely out of the question that he should ever travel beyond it to another.