Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/139

 never before been pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one evening, going home to his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet to which he prefixed the title of "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the pleasant occasions of life by a tribute to the muse. In general Osmond took his pleasures singly; he was usually disgusted with something that seemed to him ugly or offensive; his mind was rarely visited with moods of comprehensive satisfaction. But at present he was happy—happier than he had perhaps ever been in his life; and the feeling had a large foundation. This was simply the sense of success—the most agreeable emotion of the human heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he had never been spoiled; as he knew perfectly well and often reminded himself. "Ah no, I have not been spoiled; certainly I have not been spoiled," he used to repeat to himself. "If I do succeed before I die, I shall have earned it well." Absolutely void of success his career had not been; a very moderate amount of reflection would have assured him of this. But his triumphs were, some of them, now, too old; others had been too easy. The present one had been less difficult than might have been expected; but it had been easy—that is, it had been rapid—only because he had made an altogether exceptional effort, a greater effort than he had believed it was in him to make. The desire to succeed greatly—in something or other—had been the dream of his youth; but as the years went on, the conditions attached to success became so various and repulsive that the idea of making an effort gradually lost its charm. It was not dead, however; it only slept; it revived after he had made the acquaintance of