 Hubert
Eldon. In him, despite his birth and breeding, there came to the surface a rich
vein of independence, obscurely traceable, no doubt, in the characters of
certain of his ancestors, appearing at length where nineteenth-century
influences had thinned the detritus of convention and class prejudice. His
nature abounded in contradictions, and as yet self-study - in itself the note of
a mind striving for emancipation - had done little for him beyond making clear
the manifold difficulties strewn in his path of progress.
    You know already that it was no vulgar instinct of sensuality which had made
severance between him and the respectable traditions of his family. Observant
friends naturally cast him in the category of young men whom the prospect of a
fortune seduces to a life of riot; his mother had no means of forming a more
accurate judgment. Mr. Wyvern alone had seen beneath the surface, aided by a
liberal study of the world, and no doubt also by that personal sympathy which is
so important an ally of charity and truth. Mr. Wyvern's early life had not been
in smooth waters; in him too revolt was native, tempered also by spiritual
influences of the most opposite kind. He felt a deep interest in the young man,
and desired to keep him in view. It was the first promise of friendship that had
been held out to Hubert, who already suffered from a sense of isolation, and was
wondering in what class of society he would have to look for his kith and kin.
Since boyhood he had drawn apart to a great extent from the companionships which
most readily offered. The turn taken by the circumstances of his family affected
the pride which was one of his strongest characteristics; his house had fallen,
and it seemed to him that a good deal of pity, if not of contempt, mingled with
his reception by the more fortunate of his own standing. He had never overcome a
natural hostility to old Mr. Mutimer; the bourgeois virtues of the worthy
iron-master rather irritated than attracted him, and he suffered intensely in
the thought that his mother brought herself to close friendship with one so much
her inferior just for the sake of her son's future. In this matter he judged
with tolerable accuracy. Mrs. Eldon, finding in the old man a certain unexpected
refinement over and above his goodness of heart, consciously or unconsciously
encouraged herself in idealising him, that the way of interest might approach as
nearly as might be to that of honour. Hubert, with no understanding for the
craggy facts of life, inwardly rebelled against the whole situation. He felt
