There was no trace, indeed, of the common Pharisee in Miltoun, he was simple and direct; but his eyes, his gestures, the whole man, proclaimed the presence of some secret spring of certainty, some fundamental well into which no disturbing glimmers penetrated.

He was not devoid of wit, but he was devoid of that kind of wit which turns its eyes inward, and sees something of the fun that lies in being what you are.

Miltoun saw the world and all the things thereof shaped like spires--even when they were circles.

He seemed to have no sense that the Universe was equally compounded of those two symbols, whose point of reconciliation had not yet been discovered.
Such was he, then, when the Member for his native division was made a peer.
He had reached the age of thirty without ever having been in love, leading a life of almost savage purity, with one solitary breakdown.
Women were afraid of him.

And he was perhaps a little afraid of woman.
She was in theory too lovely and desirable--the half-moon in a summer sky; in practice too cloying, or too harsh.