and he made no audible complaint. His wages were consider
ably more than he needed, and systematically he put money aside each
week.
But this orderly existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind
which Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly
have described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father's
death put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could
not ripen him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile
order common in his world, and through passion, through conflict,
through endurance, it had to develop such maturity as fate should
permit. Saved from self-indulgence, he naturally turned into the way
of political enthusiasm; thither did his temper point him. With some
help--mostly negative--from Clerkenwell Green, he reached the
stage of confident and aspiring Radicalism, believing in the
perfectibility of man, in human brotherhood, in--anything you like
that is the outcome of a noble heart sheltered by ignorance. It had
its turn, and passed.
To give place to nothing very satisfactory. It was not a mere
coincidence that Sidney was going through a period of mental and
moral confusion just in those years which brought Clara Hewett from
childhood to the state of woman.
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