He could not choose the former because he had no means but the
landed estates (he did not care to serve); moreover, he had
formed luxurious habits which he could not easily give up.
Besides, he had no longer the same inducements; his strong
convictions, the resoluteness of youth, and the ambitious desire
to do something unusual were gone. As to the second course, that
of denying those clear and unanswerable proofs of the injustice
of landholding, which he had drawn from Spencer's Social Statics,
and the brilliant corroboration of which he had at a later period
found in the works of Henry George, such a course was impossible
to him.