tasted with tolerable freedom of the pleasures and frivolities
of life, he was not in an inapt humour to observe, to enquire,
and to reflect. The new objects that surrounded him excited
his intelligence; he met, which indeed is the principal
advantage of travel, remarkable men, whose conversation opened
his mind. His mind was worth opening. Energies began to stir
of which he had not been conscious; awakened curiosity led him
to investigate and to read; he discovered that, when he
imagined his education was completed, it had in fact not
commenced; and that, although he had been at a public school
and a university, he in fact knew nothing. To be conscious
that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. Before an
emancipated intellect and an expanding intelligence, the great
system of exclusive manners and exclusive feelings in which he
had been born and nurtured, began to tremble; the native
generosity of his heart recoiled at a recurrence to that
arrogant and frigid life, alike devoid of sympathy and real
grandeur.

In the early spring of 1837, Egremont re-entered the world,
where he had once sparkled, and which he had once conceived to
comprise within its circle all that could interest or occupy
man. His mother, delighted at finding him again under her
roof, had removed some long-standing coolness between him and
his elder brother; his former acquaintance greeted him with
cordiality, and introduced him to the new heroes who had
sprung up during the season of his absence. Apparently
Egremont was not disinclined to pursue, though without
eagerness, the same career that had originally engaged him.
He frequented assemblies, and lingered in clubs; rode in the