The world of finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which ended in a loathing of the thing gained.

Others might and would consume themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him such temporary pleasures were past.

He desired a complete change,--a change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty?
In his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who, rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham.

He could not compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements.

But he longed for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh his words, or to consider his actions.