Thoughts which mock at human life
Through ever-widening circles of devastation
Through the distortions of prejudice
Thwarted by seeming insuperable obstacles
Time was dissolving the circle of his friends
Times of unexampled difficulty
Tinseled over with a gaudy embellishment of words
To a practised eye
To be sedulously avoided [sedulously = persevering]
To prosecute a scheme of personal ambition