The marriage might be considered as the result of an early
engagement, though there had been two intermediate weddings on the
lady's part, and forty years of celibacy on that of the gentleman.
At sixty-five, Mr. Ellenwood was a shy, but not quite a secluded
man; selfish, like all men who brood over their own hearts, yet
manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous sentiment; a
scholar throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his
studies had no definite object, either of public advantage or personal
ambition; a gentleman, high bred and fastidiously delicate, yet
sometimes requiring a considerable relaxation, in his behalf, of the
common rules of society.
In truth, there were so many anomalies in his character, and though
shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had been
his fatality so often to become the topic of the day, by some wild
eccentricity of conduct, that people searched his lineage for an
hereditary taint of insanity. But there was no need of this. His
caprices had their origin in a mind that lacked the support of an
engrossing purpose, and in feelings that preyed upon themselves for
want of other food.
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