painting in oil

'But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors
whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin
you?'
'I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall
never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the
conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!' So
saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.
As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled
into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and
regular studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the
same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana
pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and
amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a
mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition
of which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and
absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the
outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing
upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: