His sensibility had governed him--possibly governed him too much; it had made him impatient of vulgar troubles and had led him to live by himself, in a sorted, sifted, arranged world, thinking about art and beauty and history.

He had consulted his taste in everything--his taste alone perhaps, as a sick man consciously incurable consults at last only his lawyer: that was what made him so different from every one else.

Ralph had something of this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter of connoisseurship; but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr.Osmond it was the keynote, and everything was in harmony with it.

She was certainly far from understanding him completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious.

It was hard to see what he meant for instance by speaking of his provincial side--which was exactly the side she would have taken him most to lack.