The man of the world puts on the method and measure of the world: he studies its humors. He gives up the boyish notion of a sincerity among men like that of youth: he lives to seem. He conquers such annoyances as the world may thrust upon him, in the shape of grief or losses, like a practical athlete of the ring. He studies moral sparring.
With somewhat of this strange vanity growing on you, you do not suffer the heart to wake into life except in such fanciful dreams as tempt you back to the sunny slopes of childhood.
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. It is a cold and a bitterly selfish work that lies before you,--to be covered over with such borrowed show of smiles as men call affability. The heart wears a stout, brazen screen; its inclinations grow to the habit of your ambitious projects.
In such mood come swift dreams of wealth,--not of mere accumulation, but of the splendor and parade which in our Western world are, alas! its chiefest attractions. You grow observant of markets, and estimate percentages. You fondle some speculation in your thought, until it grows into a gigantic scheme of profit; and if the venture prove successful, you follow the tide tremulously, until some sudden reverse throws you back upon the resources of your professional employ.