But he had not
that passionate soul which might have appealed, and perhaps not in vain,
to the dormant sympathies of the being who had created him. The young
Montacute was by nature of an extreme shyness, and the accidents of his
life had not tended to dissipate his painful want of self-confidence.
Physically courageous, his moral timidity was remarkable. He alternately
blushed or grew pale in his rare interviews with his father, trembled
in silence before the undeserved sarcasm, and often endured the unjust
accusation without an attempt to vindicate himself. Alone, and in
tears alike of woe and indignation, he cursed the want of resolution or
ability which had again missed the opportunity that, both for his mother
and himself, might have placed affairs in a happier position. Most
persons, under these circumstances, would have become bitter, but
Montacute was too tender for malice, and so he only turned melancholy.
On the threshold of manhood, Montacute lost his mother, and this seemed
the catastrophe of his unhappy life. His father neither shared his
grief, nor attempted to alleviate it. On the contrary, he seemed to
redouble his efforts to mortify his son. His great object was to prevent
Lord Montacute from entering society, and he was so complete a master
of the nervous temperament on which he was acting that there appeared
a fair chance of his succeeding in his benevolent intentions.
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