noon
But by little and little his kindness so completely penetrated the heart of his ward , that Ernest one evening told his whole tale . As a man of the world , Cleveland perhaps rejoiced that it was no worse , for he had feared some existing entanglement perhaps with a married woman . But as a man who was better than the world in general , he sympathised with the unfortunate girl whom Ernest pictured to him in faithful and unflattered colours , and he long forbore consolations which he foresaw would be unavailing . He felt , indeed , that Ernest was not a man `` to betray the noon of manhood to a myrtle-shade : '' -- that with so sanguine , buoyant , and hardy a temperament , he would at length recover from a depression which , if it could bequeath a warning , might as well not be wholly divested of remorse . And he also knew that few become either great authors or great men -LRB- and he fancied Ernest was born to be one or the other -RRB- without the fierce emotions and passionate struggles , through which the Wilhelm Meister of real life must work out his apprenticeship , and attain the Master Rank . But at last he had serious misgivings about the health of his ward . A constant and spectral gloom seemed bearing the young man to the grave .