Page:Master Eustace (1920).djvu/220

210 immense deal of his family. At others he was extremely domestic; he suddenly found solitude depressing, and it seemed to him that if one sought society as a refuge, one needed to be on familiar terms with it, and that with no one was familiarity so natural as among people who had grown up at a common fireside. Nevertheless it frequently occurred to him—for sooner or later everything occurred to him—that he was too independent and irresponsible; that he would be happier if his hands were sometimes tied, so long as the knot were not too tight. His curiosity about all things was great, and he satisfied it largely whenever the occasion offered itself; but as the years went by this pursuit of impartial science appeared to produce a singular result. He became conscious of an intellectual condition similar to that of a palate which has lost its relish. To a man with a disordered appetite all things taste alike, and so it seemed to Benvolio that his imagination was losing its sense of a better and a worse. It had still its glowing moments, its feasts and its holidays; but, on the whole, the spectacle of human life was growing flat and stale. This is simply a wordy way of expressing that pregnantly synthetic fact—Benvolio was blasé. He knew it, he knew it betimes, and he regretted it acutely. He believed that such a consummation was not absolutely necessary—especially at his time of life; for