Explore "Godolphin, Volume V" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The course of life which Godolphin now led, was exactly that which it is natural for a very rich intellectual man to indulge -- voluptuous but refined. He was arriving at that age when the poetry of the heart necessarily decays. Wealth almost unlimited was at his command; he had no motive for exertion; and he now sought in pleasure that which he had formerly asked from romance. As his faculties and talents had no other circle for display than that which "society" affords; so by slow degrees, society -- its applause and its regard -- became to him of greater importance than his "philosophy dreamt of. " Whatever the circle we live amongst, the public opinion of that circle will, sooner or later, obtain a control over us. This is the reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the magi of letters, all are insensibly guided -- moulded -- formed -- by the judgment of the tribe they belong to, and the circle in which they move.
Still more is it the case with the idlers of the great world, amongst whom the only main staple of talk is "themselves."