In this mood you fall in with Dalton, who has just returned from a year
passed in the French capital. There is an easy suavity and graceful
indifference in his manner that chimes admirably with your humor. He is
gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a friend, without any
challenge or proffer of sincerity. He is just one of those adepts in
world tactics which match him with all men, but which link him to none.
He has made it his art to be desired and admired, but rarely to be
trusted. You could not have a better teacher!
Under such instruction you become disgusted for the time with any
effort, or pulse of affection, which does not have immediate and
practical bearing upon that success in life by which you measure your
hopes. The dreams of love, of romantic adventure, of placid joy, have
all gone out with the fantastic images to which your passionate youth
had joined them. The world is now regarded as a tournament, where the
gladiatorship of life is to be exhibited at your best endeavor. Its
honors and joys lie in a brilliant pennon and a plaudit.
Dalton is learned in those arts which make of action, not a duty, but a
conquest; and sense of duty has expired in you with those romantic hopes
to which you bound it, not as much through sympathy as ignorance.
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