But on the other hand, pleasure, in
this case, was quite at one with effort; evidently the greatest bliss in
life, for Roderick, would have been to have a plastic idea. And then, it
was impossible not to feel tenderly to a despair which had so ceased to
be aggressive--not to forgive a great deal of apathy to a temper
which had so unlearned its irritability. Roderick said frankly that
Switzerland made him less miserable than Italy, and the Alps seemed less
to mock at his enforced leisure than the Apennines. He indulged in
long rambles, generally alone, and was very fond of climbing into dizzy
places, where no sound could overtake him, and there, flinging himself
on the never-trodden moss, of pulling his hat over his eyes and lounging
away the hours in perfect immobility. Rowland sometimes walked with
him; though Roderick never invited him, he seemed duly grateful for his
society. Rowland now made it a rule to treat him like a perfectly sane
man, to assume that all things were well with him, and never to allude
to the prosperity he had forfeited or to the work he was not doing. He
would have still said, had you questioned him, that Roderick's condition
was a mood--certainly a puzzling one.
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