If memory has any pleasures worth speaking of (which many grave and
learned doctors take leave to doubt), certainly among the purest is the
recollection of having once been endowed with the whole love of a rare
and beautiful being which we did not abuse or betray. This is the only
sort of lost riches on which we can look back with comfort out of the
depths of present and pressing poverty; the pearl is so very precious
that it confers on its possessor a certain dignity which does not
entirely pass away, even when the jewel has slipped from his grasp,
following the ring of Polycrates. Alas! alas! less generous than the
blue AEgaean are the sullen waters of the deep. _Mare mortuum._ Only on
these grounds can that wonderful self-possession be accounted for, which
enables men, seemingly ill-fitted for the situation, to confront the
world in all its phases with so grand a calmness. It is refreshing to
see how even coquetry recoils from that armor of proof, and to fancy how
the dead beauty might triumph over the defeat of her living rivals,
laughing the seductions of their loveliness to scorn. Even in crises of
graver difficulty, where sterner assailants are to be encountered than
Helen's magical smile or Florence's magnetic eyes, the invisible
presence seems to inspire her lover with supernatural valiance. Remember
the story of Aslauga's Knight; when once through the cloud of
battle-dust gleamed the golden tresses, horse and man went down before
him.

Royston was not half good enough to appreciate all this; yet some
shadowy and undefined feeling, allied to it, may have helped to hold him
back from pushing his advantage to the uttermost. Another and more
selfish presentiment worked probably more powerfully. There was one
phantom from which the Cool Captain never could escape; for years it had
followed close on the consummation of all his crimes, and was, in truth,
their best avenger: his Nemesis was satiety. He knew too well how the
sweetest flowers lost their color and fragrance, so soon as they were
plucked and fairly in his grasp, not to shrink before the prospect of a
certain disenchantment. This curse attaches to many of his kind: the
instant the prize is won there arise misgivings as to its value; and
defects develop themselves hourly in what seemed faultless perfection
before. It is boys' play to simulate being _blase_; but the reality
makes mature manhood disbelieve any thing sooner than inevitable
retribution. Very