A failure, for the present, of his aims.
Hilary’s wife:
Thou see’st the man with only that much sight
With which Romanus hath entrusted thee,
Thou shouldst gaze on him with unbiased eye.
He can so steep himself in spirit-life
That he appears quite sundered from the earth.
Then spirit forms his whole environment
And Theodora liveth then for him.
In speaking with him it appears as if