Most of his time Piers
spent in rambling alone about the moorland, for health and for
weariness. When unoccupied, he durst not be physically idle; the
passions that ever lurked to frenzy him could only be baffled at
such times by vigorous exercise. His cold bath in the early morning
was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical
soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs;
feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love
dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle
of a frame strung to perfect service. Would he win his heart's
desire?--let him be worthy of it in body as in mind. He pursued to
excess the point of cleanliness. With no touch of personal conceit,
he excelled the perfumed exquisite in care for minute perfections.
Not in costume; on that score he was indifferent, once the
conditions of health fulfilled. His inherited tone was far from
perfect; with rage he looked back upon those insensate years of
study, which had weakened him just when he should have been
carefully fortifying his constitution. Only by conflict daily
renewed did he keep in the way of safety; a natural indolence had
ever to be combated; there was always the fear of relapse, such as
had befallen him now and again during his years in Russia; a relapse
not alone in physical training, but from the ideal of chastity.
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