But
limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss
by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or
aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since
those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind
it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything
to have been always without it, and what Troy had
never enjoyed he did not miss; but, being fully
conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed,
his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than
theirs.
He was moderately truthful towards men, but to
women lied like a Cretan -- a system of ethics above all
others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of
admission into lively society; and the possibility of the
favour gained being transitory had reference only to
the future.
He never passed the line which divides the spruce
vices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals had
hardly been applauded, disapproval of them" had fre-
quently been tempered with a smile. This treatment
had led to his becoming a sort of regrater of other
men's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as a
Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his
hearers.
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