It was vanity, of the most pardonable kind, indeed, but
vanity nevertheless which had led him to embark upon his dangerous
enterprise--not in the determination to accomplish for the sake of
accomplishing, still less in the direct desire for wealth as an ultimate
object, but in the almost boyish longing to show to his own people that
there was more in him than they suspected. The gift of foresight is
generally weakened by the presence of vanity, but when vanity takes its
place the result is as likely to be failure as not, and depends almost
directly upon chance alone.
The crisis in Orsino's life was at hand, and what has here been finally
said of his position at that time seemed necessary, as summing up the
consequences to him of more than two years' unremitting labour, during
which he had become involved in affairs of enormous consequence at an
age when most young men are spending their time, more profitably perhaps
and certainly more agreeably, in such pleasures and pursuits as mother
society provides for her half-fledged nestlings.
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