The public regarded him as an impersonation of vigour, vivacity, and self-reliance; but his own family, together with one, and probably only one, of his friends, knew that his affections were only too tender, and his sensibilities only too acute.

Others may well be loth to parade what he concealed; but a portrait of Macaulay, from which these features were omitted, would be imperfect to the extent of misrepresentation; and it must be acknowledged that, where he loved, he loved more entirely, and more exclusively, than was well for himself.

It was improvident in him to concentrate such intensity of feeling upon relations who, however deeply they were attached to him, could not always be in a position to requite him with the whole of their time, and the whole of their heart.
He suffered much for that improvidence; but he was too just and too kind to permit that others should suffer with him; and it is not for one who obtained by inheritance a share of his inestimable affection to regret a weakness to which he considers himself by duty bound to refer.
How keenly Macaulay felt the separation from his sister it is impossible to do more than indicate.

He never again recovered that tone of thorough boyishness, which had been produced by a long unbroken habit of gay and affectionate intimacy with those younger than himself; indulged in without a suspicion on the part of any concerned that it was in its very nature transitory and precarious.

For the first time he was led to doubt whether his scheme of life was indeed a wise one; or, rather, he began to be aware that he had never laid out any scheme of life at all.