The man had no poetry about him. He did not even care for romance. All the outside belongings of love which are so pleasant to many men and which to many women afford the one sweetness in life which they really relish, were nothing to him. There are both men and women to whom even the delays and disappointments of love are charming, even when they exist to the detriment of hope. It is sweet to such persons to be melancholy, sweet to pine, sweet to feel that they are now wretched after a romantic fashion as have been those heroes and heroines of whose sufferings they have read in poetry. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. He had, as he believed, found the woman that he really wanted, who was worthy of his love, and now, having fixed his heart upon her, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life had become indifferent to him without her. No man in England could be less likely to throw himself off the Monument or to blow out his brains. But he felt numbed in all the joints of his mind by this sorrow. 
The man had no poetry about him. All the embellishments of love were nothing to him. There are men and women to whom even the delays and disappointments of love are charming. It is sweet to such persons to be melancholy, sweet to pine in a romantic fashion. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. Having fixed his heart upon Henrietta, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life was indifferent to him without her. No man in England was less likely to blow out his brains. But he felt numbed in all the joints of his mind by this sorrow. 