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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man of Feeling, by Henry Mackenzie
+(#1 in our series by Henry Mackenzie)
+
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+Title: The Man of Feeling
+
+Author: Henry Mackenzie
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5083]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 18, 2002]
+[Most recently updated: April 18, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MAN OF FEELING ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the
+1886 Cassell & Company edition.
+
+
+
+THE MAN OF FEELING
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+Henry Mackenzie, the son of an Edinburgh physician, was born in
+August, 1745.  After education in the University of Edinburgh he
+went to London in 1765, at the age of twenty, for law studies,
+returned to Edinburgh, and became Crown Attorney in the Scottish
+Court of Exchequer.  When Mackenzie was in London, Sterne's
+"Tristram Shandy" was in course of publication.  The first two
+volumes had appeared in 1759, and the ninth appeared in 1767,
+followed in 1768, the year of Sterne's death, by "The Sentimental
+Journey."  Young Mackenzie had a strong bent towards literature, and
+while studying law in London, he read Sterne, and falling in with
+the tone of sentiment which Sterne himself caught from the spirit of
+the time and the example of Rousseau, he wrote "The Man of Feeling."
+This book was published, without author's name, in 1771.  It was so
+popular that a young clergyman made a copy of it popular with
+imagined passages of erasure and correction, on the strength of
+which he claimed to be its author, and obliged Henry Mackenzie to
+declare himself.  In 1773 Mackenzie published a second novel, "The
+Man of the World," and in 1777 a third, "Julia de Roubigne."  An
+essay-reading society in Edinburgh, of which he was a leader,
+started in January, 1779, a weekly paper called The Mirror, which he
+edited until May, 1780.  Its writers afterwards joined in producing
+The Lounger, which lasted from February, 1785, to January, 1787.
+Henry Mackenzie contributed forty-two papers to The Mirror and
+fifty-seven to The Lounger.  When the Royal Society of Edinburgh was
+founded Henry Mackenzie was active as one of its first members.  He
+was also one of the founders of the Highland Society.
+
+Although his "Man of Feeling" was a serious reflection of the false
+sentiment of the Revolution, Mackenzie joined afterwards in writing
+tracts to dissuade the people from faith in the doctrines of the
+Revolutionists.  Mackenzie wrote also a tragedy, "The Prince of
+Tunis," which was acted with success at Edinburgh, and a comedy,
+"The White Hypocrite," which was acted once only at Covent garden.
+He died at the age of eighty-six, on the 13th June, 1831, having for
+many years been regarded as an elder friend of their own craft by
+the men of letters who in his days gave dignity to Edinburgh
+society, and caused the town to be called the Modern Athens.
+
+A man of refined taste, who caught the tone of the French sentiment
+of his time, has, of course, pleased French critics, and has been
+translated into French.  "The Man of Feeling" begins with imitation
+of Sterne, and proceeds in due course through so many tears that it
+is hardly to be called a dry book.  As guide to persons of a
+calculating disposition who may read these pages I append an index
+to the Tears shed in "The Man of Feeling."
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+My dog had made a point on a piece of fallow-ground, and led the
+curate and me two or three hundred yards over that and some stubble
+adjoining, in a breathless state of expectation, on a burning first
+of September.
+
+It was a false point, and our labour was vain:  yet, to do Rover
+justice (for he's an excellent dog, though I have lost his
+pedigree), the fault was none of his, the birds were gone:  the
+curate showed me the spot where they had lain basking, at the root
+of an old hedge.
+
+I stopped and cried Hem!  The curate is fatter than I; he wiped the
+sweat from his brow.
+
+There is no state where one is apter to pause and look round one,
+than after such a disappointment.  It is even so in life.  When we
+have been hurrying on, impelled by some warm wish or other, looking
+neither to the right hand nor to the left--we find of a sudden that
+all our gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that
+some friend can give us, is to point where they were once to be
+found.  And lo! if we are not of that combustible race, who will
+rather beat their heads in spite, than wipe their brows with the
+curate, we look round and say, with the nauseated listlessness of
+the king of Israel, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit."
+
+I looked round with some such grave apophthegm in my mind when I
+discovered, for the first time, a venerable pile, to which the
+enclosure belonged.  An air of melancholy hung about it.  There was
+a languid stillness in the day, and a single crow, that perched on
+an old tree by the side of the gate, seemed to delight in the echo
+of its own croaking.
+
+I leaned on my gun and looked; but I had not breath enough to ask
+the curate a question.  I observed carving on the bark of some of
+the trees:  'twas indeed the only mark of human art about the place,
+except that some branches appeared to have been lopped, to give a
+view of the cascade, which was formed by a little rill at some
+distance.
+
+Just at that instant I saw pass between the trees a young lady with
+a book in her hand.  I stood upon a stone to observe her; but the
+curate sat him down on the grass, and leaning his back where I
+stood, told me, "That was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman
+of the name of WALTON, whom he had seen walking there more than
+once.
+
+"Some time ago," he said, "one HARLEY lived there, a whimsical sort
+of man I am told, but I was not then in the cure; though, if I had a
+turn for those things, I might know a good deal of his history, for
+the greatest part of it is still in my possession."
+
+"His history!" said I.  "Nay, you may call it what you please," said
+the curate; for indeed it is no more a history than it is a sermon.
+The way I came by it was this:  some time ago, a grave, oddish kind
+of a man boarded at a farmer's in this parish:  the country people
+called him The Ghost; and he was known by the slouch in his gait,
+and the length of his stride.  I was but little acquainted with him,
+for he never frequented any of the clubs hereabouts.  Yet for all he
+used to walk a-nights, he was as gentle as a lamb at times; for I
+have seen him playing at teetotum with the children, on the great
+stone at the door of our churchyard.
+
+"Soon after I was made curate, he left the parish, and went nobody
+knows whither; and in his room was found a bundle of papers, which
+was brought to me by his landlord.  I began to read them, but I soon
+grew weary of the task; for, besides that the hand is intolerably
+bad, I could never find the author in one strain for two chapters
+together; and I don't believe there's a single syllogism from
+beginning to end."
+
+"I should be glad to see this medley," said I.  "You shall see it
+now," answered the curate, "for I always take it along with me a-
+shooting."  "How came it so torn?"  "'Tis excellent wadding," said
+the curate.--This was a plea of expediency I was not in a condition
+to answer; for I had actually in my pocket great part of an edition
+of one of the German Illustrissimi, for the very same purpose.  We
+exchanged books; and by that means (for the curate was a strenuous
+logician) we probably saved both.
+
+When I returned to town, I had leisure to peruse the acquisition I
+had made:  I found it a bundle of little episodes, put together
+without art, and of no importance on the whole, with something of
+nature, and little else in them.  I was a good deal affected with
+some very trifling passages in it; and had the name of Marmontel, or
+a Richardson, been on the title-page--'tis odds that I should have
+wept:  But
+
+One is ashamed to be pleased with the works of one knows not whom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI {16}--ON BASHFULNESS.--A CHARACTER.--HIS OPINION ON THAT
+SUBJECT
+
+
+
+There is some rust about every man at the beginning; though in some
+nations (among the French for instance) the ideas of the
+inhabitants, from climate, or what other cause you will, are so
+vivacious, so eternally on the wing, that they must, even in small
+societies, have a frequent collision; the rust therefore will wear
+off sooner:  but in Britain it often goes with a man to his grave;
+nay, he dares not even pen a hic jacet to speak out for him after
+his death.
+
+"Let them rub it off by travel," said the baronet's brother, who was
+a striking instance of excellent metal, shamefully rusted.  I had
+drawn my chair near his.  Let me paint the honest old man:  'tis but
+one passing sentence to preserve his image in my mind.
+
+He sat in his usual attitude, with his elbow rested on his knee, and
+his fingers pressed on his cheek.  His face was shaded by his hand;
+yet it was a face that might once have been well accounted handsome;
+its features were manly and striking, a dignity resided on his
+eyebrows, which were the largest I remember to have seen.  His
+person was tall and well-made; but the indolence of his nature had
+now inclined it to corpulency.
+
+His remarks were few, and made only to his familiar friends; but
+they were such as the world might have heard with veneration:  and
+his heart, uncorrupted by its ways, was ever warm in the cause of
+virtue and his friends.
+
+He is now forgotten and gone!  The last time I was at Silton Hall, I
+saw his chair stand in its corner by the fire-side; there was an
+additional cushion on it, and it was occupied by my young lady's
+favourite lap dog.  I drew near unperceived, and pinched its ears in
+the bitterness of my soul; the creature howled, and ran to its
+mistress.  She did not suspect the author of its misfortune, but she
+bewailed it in the most pathetic terms; and kissing its lips, laid
+it gently on her lap, and covered it with a cambric handkerchief.  I
+sat in my old friend's seat; I heard the roar of mirth and gaiety
+around me:  poor Ben Silton!  I gave thee a tear then:  accept of
+one cordial drop that falls to thy memory now.
+
+"They should wear it off by travel."--Why, it is true, said I, that
+will go far; but then it will often happen, that in the velocity of
+a modern tour, and amidst the materials through which it is commonly
+made, the friction is so violent, that not only the rust, but the
+metal too, is lost in the progress.
+
+"Give me leave to correct the expression of your metaphor," said Mr.
+Silton:  "that is not always rust which is acquired by the
+inactivity of the body on which it preys; such, perhaps, is the case
+with me, though indeed I was never cleared from my youth; but
+(taking it in its first stage) it is rather an encrustation, which
+nature has given for purposes of the greatest wisdom."
+
+"You are right," I returned; "and sometimes, like certain precious
+fossils, there may be hid under it gems of the purest brilliancy."
+
+"Nay, farther," continued Mr. Silton, "there are two distinct sorts
+of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby, which
+a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a
+coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings
+produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always remove."
+
+From the incidents I have already related, I imagine it will be
+concluded that Harley was of the latter species of bashful animals;
+at least, if Mr. Silton's principle is just, it may be argued on
+this side; for the gradation of the first mentioned sort, it is
+certain, he never attained.  Some part of his external appearance
+was modelled from the company of those gentlemen, whom the antiquity
+of a family, now possessed of bare 250 pounds a year, entitled its
+representative to approach:  these indeed were not many; great part
+of the property in his neighbourhood being in the hands of
+merchants, who had got rich by their lawful calling abroad, and the
+sons of stewards, who had got rich by their lawful calling at home:
+persons so perfectly versed in the ceremonial of thousands, tens of
+thousands, and hundreds of thousands (whose degrees of precedency
+are plainly demonstrable from the first page of the Complete
+Accomptant, or Young Man's Best Pocket Companion) that a bow at
+church from them to such a man as Harley would have made the parson
+look back into his sermon for some precept of Christian humility.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--OF WORLDLY INTERESTS
+
+
+
+There are certain interests which the world supposes every man to
+have, and which therefore are properly enough termed worldly; but
+the world is apt to make an erroneous estimate:  ignorant of the
+dispositions which constitute our happiness or misery, they bring to
+an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with
+power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.
+Philosophers and poets have often protested against this decision;
+but their arguments have been despised as declamatory, or ridiculed
+as romantic.
+
+There are never wanting to a young man some grave and prudent
+friends to set him right in this particular, if he need it; to watch
+his ideas as they arise, and point them to those objects which a
+wise man should never forget.
+
+Harley did not want for some monitors of this sort.  He was
+frequently told of men whose fortunes enabled them to command all
+the luxuries of life, whose fortunes were of their own acquirement:
+his envy was invited by a description of their happiness, and his
+emulation by a recital of the means which had procured it.
+
+Harley was apt to hear those lectures with indifference; nay,
+sometimes they got the better of his temper; and as the instances
+were not always amiable, provoked, on his part, some reflections,
+which I am persuaded his good-nature would else have avoided.
+
+Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a
+man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would
+do well to acquire; a certain respect for the follies of mankind:
+for there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world entitles
+to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are
+unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at
+the sight will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things
+to relish that share which is allotted to himself.  I do not mean,
+however, to insinuate this to have been the case with Harley; on the
+contrary, if we might rely on his own testimony, the conceptions he
+had of pomp and grandeur served to endear the state which Providence
+had assigned him.
+
+He lost his father, the last surviving of his parents, as I have
+already related, when he was a boy.  The good man, from a fear of
+offending, as well as a regard to his son, had named him a variety
+of guardians; one consequence of which was, that they seldom met at
+all to consider the affairs of their ward; and when they did meet,
+their opinions were so opposite, that the only possible method of
+conciliation was the mediatory power of a dinner and a bottle, which
+commonly interrupted, not ended, the dispute; and after that
+interruption ceased, left the consulting parties in a condition not
+very proper for adjusting it.  His education therefore had been but
+indifferently attended to; and after being taken from a country
+school, at which he had been boarded, the young gentleman was
+suffered to be his own master in the subsequent branches of
+literature, with some assistance from the parson of the parish in
+languages and philosophy, and from the exciseman in arithmetic and
+book-keeping.  One of his guardians, indeed, who, in his youth, had
+been an inhabitant of the Temple, set him to read Coke upon
+Lyttelton:  a book which is very properly put into the hands of
+beginners in that science, as its simplicity is accommodated to
+their understandings, and its size to their inclination.  He
+profited but little by the perusal; but it was not without its use
+in the family:  for his maiden aunt applied it commonly to the
+laudable purpose of pressing her rebellious linens to the folds she
+had allotted them.
+
+There were particularly two ways of increasing his fortune, which
+might have occurred to people of less foresight than the counsellors
+we have mentioned.  One of these was, the prospect of his succeeding
+to an old lady, a distant relation, who was known to be possessed of
+a very large sum in the stocks:  but in this their hopes were
+disappointed; for the young man was so untoward in his disposition,
+that, notwithstanding the instructions he daily received, his visits
+rather tended to alienate than gain the good-will of his kinswoman.
+He sometimes looked grave when the old lady told the jokes of her
+youth; he often refused to eat when she pressed him, and was seldom
+or never provided with sugar-candy or liquorice when she was seized
+with a fit of coughing:  nay, he had once the rudeness to fall
+asleep while she was describing the composition and virtues of her
+favourite cholic-water.  In short, be accommodated himself so ill to
+her humour, that she died, and did not leave him a farthing.
+
+The other method pointed out to him was an endeavour to get a lease
+of some crown-lands, which lay contiguous to his little paternal
+estate.  This, it was imagined, might be easily procured, as the
+crown did not draw so much rent as Harley could afford to give, with
+very considerable profit to himself; and the then lessee had
+rendered himself so obnoxious to the ministry, by the disposal of
+his vote at an election, that he could not expect a renewal.  This,
+however, needed some interest with the great, which Harley or his
+father never possessed.
+
+His neighbour, Mr. Walton, having heard of this affair, generously
+offered his assistance to accomplish it.  He told him, that though
+he had long been a stranger to courtiers, yet he believed there were
+some of them who might pay regard to his recommendation; and that,
+if he thought it worth the while to take a London journey upon the
+business, he would furnish him with a letter of introduction to a
+baronet of his acquaintance, who had a great deal to say with the
+first lord of the treasury.
+
+When his friends heard of this offer, they pressed him with the
+utmost earnestness to accept of it.
+
+They did not fail to enumerate the many advantages which a certain
+degree of spirit and assurance gives a man who would make a figure
+in the world:  they repeated their instances of good fortune in
+others, ascribed them all to a happy forwardness of disposition; and
+made so copious a recital of the disadvantages which attend the
+opposite weakness, that a stranger, who had heard them, would have
+been led to imagine, that in the British code there was some
+disqualifying statute against any citizen who should be convicted
+of--modesty.
+
+Harley, though he had no great relish for the attempt, yet could not
+resist the torrent of motives that assaulted him; and as he needed
+but little preparation for his journey, a day, not very distant, was
+fixed for his departure.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--THE MAN OF FEELING IN LOVE
+
+
+
+The day before that on which he set out, he went to take leave of
+Mr. Walton.--We would conceal nothing;--there was another person of
+the family to whom also the visit was intended, on whose account,
+perhaps, there were some tenderer feelings in the bosom of Harley
+than his gratitude for the friendly notice of that gentleman (though
+he was seldom deficient in that virtue) could inspire.  Mr. Walton
+had a daughter; and such a daughter! we will attempt some
+description of her by and by.
+
+Harley's notions of the ?a???, or beautiful, were not always to be
+defined, nor indeed such as the world would always assent to, though
+we could define them.  A blush, a phrase of affability to an
+inferior, a tear at a moving tale, were to him, like the Cestus of
+Cytherea, unequalled in conferring beauty.  For all these Miss
+Walton was remarkable; but as these, like the above-mentioned
+Cestus, are perhaps still more powerful when the wearer is possessed
+of souse degree of beauty, commonly so called, it happened, that,
+from this cause, they had more than usual power in the person of
+that young lady.
+
+She was now arrived at that period of life which takes, or is
+supposed to take, from the flippancy of girlhood those
+sprightlinesses with which some good-natured old maids oblige the
+world at three-score.  She had been ushered into life (as that word
+is used in the dialect of St. James's) at seventeen, her father
+being then in parliament, and living in London:  at seventeen,
+therefore, she had been a universal toast; her health, now she was
+four-and-twenty, was only drank by those who knew her face at least.
+Her complexion was mellowed into a paleness, which certainly took
+from her beauty; but agreed, at least Harley used to say so, with
+the pensive softness of her mind.  Her eyes were of that gentle
+hazel colour which is rather mild than piercing; and, except when
+they were lighted up by good-humour, which was frequently the case,
+were supposed by the fine gentlemen to want fire.  Her air and
+manner were elegant in the highest degree, and were as sure of
+commanding respect as their mistress was far from demanding it.  Her
+voice was inexpressibly soft; it was, according to that incomparable
+simile of Otway's,
+
+
+- "like the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains,
+When all his little flock's at feed before him."
+
+
+The effect it had upon Harley, himself used to paint ridiculously
+enough; and ascribed it to powers, which few believed, and nobody
+cared for.
+
+Her conversation was always cheerful, but rarely witty; and without
+the smallest affectation of learning, had as much sentiment in it as
+would have puzzled a Turk, upon his principles of female
+materialism, to account for.  Her beneficence was unbounded; indeed
+the natural tenderness of her heart might have been argued, by the
+frigidity of a casuist, as detracting from her virtue in this
+respect, for her humanity was a feeling, not a principle:  but minds
+like Harley's are not very apt to make this distinction, and
+generally give our virtue credit for all that benevolence which is
+instinctive in our nature.
+
+As her father had some years retired to the country, Harley had
+frequent opportunities of seeing her.  He looked on her for some
+time merely with that respect and admiration which her appearance
+seemed to demand, and the opinion of others conferred upon her from
+this cause, perhaps, and from that extreme sensibility of which we
+have taken frequent notice, Harley was remarkably silent in her
+presence.  He heard her sentiments with peculiar attention,
+sometimes with looks very expressive of approbation; but seldom
+declared his opinion on the subject, much less made compliments to
+the lady on the justness of her remarks.
+
+From this very reason it was that Miss Walton frequently took more
+particular notice of him than of other visitors, who, by the laws of
+precedency, were better entitled to it:  it was a mode of politeness
+she had peculiarly studied, to bring to the line of that equality,
+which is ever necessary for the ease of our guests, those whose
+sensibility had placed them below it.
+
+Harley saw this; for though he was a child in the drama of the
+world, yet was it not altogether owing to a want of knowledge on his
+part; on the contrary, the most delicate consciousness of propriety
+often kindled that blush which marred the performance of it:  this
+raised his esteem something above what the most sanguine
+descriptions of her goodness had been able to do; for certain it is,
+that notwithstanding the laboured definitions which very wise men
+have given us of the inherent beauty of virtue, we are always
+inclined to think her handsomest when she condescends to smile upon
+ourselves.
+
+It would be trite to observe the easy gradation from esteem to love:
+in the bosom of Harley there scarce needed a transition; for there
+were certain seasons when his ideas were flushed to a degree much
+above their common complexion.  In times not credulous of
+inspiration, we should account for this from some natural cause; but
+we do not mean to account for it at all; it were sufficient to
+describe its effects; but they were sometimes so ludicrous, as might
+derogate from the dignity of the sensations which produced them to
+describe.  They were treated indeed as such by most of Harley's
+sober friends, who often laughed very heartily at the awkward
+blunders of the real Harley, when the different faculties, which
+should have prevented them, were entirely occupied by the ideal.  In
+some of these paroxysms of fancy, Miss Walton did not fail to be
+introduced; and the picture which had been drawn amidst the
+surrounding objects of unnoticed levity was now singled out to be
+viewed through the medium of romantic imagination:  it was improved
+of course, and esteem was a word inexpressive of the feelings which
+it excited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV--HE SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY--THE BEGGAR AND HIS DOG
+
+
+
+He had taken leave of his aunt on the eve of his intended departure;
+but the good lady's affection for her nephew interrupted her sleep,
+and early as it was next morning when Harley came downstairs to set
+out, he found her in the parlour with a tear on her cheek, and her
+caudle-cup in her hand.  She knew enough of physic to prescribe
+against going abroad of a morning with an empty stomach.  She gave
+her blessing with the draught; her instructions she had delivered
+the night before.  They consisted mostly of negatives, for London,
+in her idea, was so replete with temptations that it needed the
+whole armour of her friendly cautions to repel their attacks.
+
+Peter stood at the door.  We have mentioned this faithful fellow
+formerly:  Harley's father had taken him up an orphan, and saved him
+from being cast on the parish; and he had ever since remained in the
+service of him and of his son.  Harley shook him by the hand as he
+passed, smiling, as if he had said, "I will not weep."  He sprung
+hastily into the chaise that waited for him; Peter folded up the
+step.  "My dear master," said he, shaking the solitary lock that
+hung on either side of his head, "I have been told as how London is
+a sad place."  He was choked with the thought, and his benediction
+could not be heard: --but it shall be heard, honest Peter! where
+these tears will add to its energy.
+
+In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed
+breakfasting, but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to
+eat a morsel.  He walked out on the road, and gaining a little
+height, stood gazing on that quarter he had left.  He looked for his
+wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills:  they were
+lost in the distant clouds!  He pencilled them on the clouds, and
+bade them farewell with a sigh!
+
+He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his
+shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him.  He
+had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags,
+amongst which the blue and the russet were the predominant.  He had
+a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a
+ram's horn; his knees (though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff
+of his breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely
+lost that part of them which should have covered his feet and
+ankles; in his face, however, was the plump appearance of good
+humour; he walked a good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted
+at his heels.
+
+"Our delicacies," said Harley to himself, "are fantastic; they are
+not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones
+barefooted, whilst I have lost the most delightful dream in the
+world, from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe."
+The beggar had by this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of
+hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too: --it was
+impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and
+stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined
+sixpence for him before.  The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth
+blessings without number; and, with a sort of smile on his
+countenance, said to Harley "that if he wanted to have his fortune
+told"--Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar:  it was an
+unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the
+prophet immediately.  "I would much rather learn," said Harley,
+"what it is in your power to tell me:  your trade must be an
+entertaining one; sit down on this stone, and let me know something
+of your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller
+for a week or two myself."
+
+"Master," replied the beggar, "I like your frankness much; God knows
+I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child, but there is
+no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying
+is, as you call it, my profession, but I was in some sort forced to
+the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth.
+
+"I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live:  I
+never laid by indeed:  for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your
+wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr. Harley."
+
+"So," said Harley, "you seem to know me."
+
+"Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don't know something
+of:  how should I tell fortunes else?"
+
+"True; but to go on with your story:  you were a labourer, you say,
+and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade,
+but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new."
+
+"What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on't:  but I was
+brought to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and it
+went against my stomach to work ever after.  I was seized with a
+jail fever at the time of the assizes being in the county where I
+lived; for I was always curious to get acquainted with the felons,
+because they are commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought,
+qualities I had ever an esteem for.  In the height of this fever,
+Mr. Harley, the house where I lay took fire, and burnt to the
+ground; I was carried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of
+my illness in a barn.  I got the better of my disease, however, but
+I was so weak that I spit blood whenever I attempted to work.  I had
+no relation living that I knew of, and I never kept a friend above a
+week, when I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six months in
+a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a settlement
+in any:  thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I
+found it, Mr. Harley.  I told all my misfortunes truly, but they
+were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a halfpenny as they
+passed did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to
+trouble them with a long story.  In short, I found that people don't
+care to give alms without some security for their money; a wooden
+leg or a withered arm is a sort of draught upon heaven for those who
+choose to have their money placed to account there; so I changed my
+plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to prophesy
+happiness to others.  This I found by much the better way:  folks
+will always listen when the tale is their own, and of many who say
+they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it
+had not a very sensible effect.  I pick up the names of their
+acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among
+servants and neighbours; and indeed people themselves are the best
+intelligencers in the world for our purpose:  they dare not puzzle
+us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they
+wish to believe, and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they
+have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to
+imagine.  With a tolerable good memory, and some share of cunning,
+with the help of walking a-nights over heaths and church-yards, with
+this, and showing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from
+the serjeant of a marching regiment (and by the way, he can steal
+too upon occasion), I make shift to pick up a livelihood.  My trade,
+indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people are not much cheated
+neither who give a few half-pence for a prospect of happiness, which
+I have heard some persons say is all a man can arrive at in this
+world.  But I must bid you good day, sir, for I have three miles to
+walk before noon, to inform some boarding-school young ladies
+whether their husbands are to be peers of the realm or captains in
+the army:  a question which I promised to answer them by that time."
+
+Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket; but Virtue bade him
+consider on whom he was going to bestow it.  Virtue held back his
+arm; but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe
+as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him; his fingers lost
+their compression, nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it
+fell.  It had no sooner reached the ground than the watchful cur (a
+trick he had been taught) snapped it up, and, contrary to the most
+approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the
+hands of his master.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX--HE MAKES A SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE BARONET'S.  THE
+LAUDABLE AMBITION OF A YOUNG MAN TO BE THOUGHT SOMETHING BY THE
+WORLD
+
+
+
+We have related, in a former chapter, the little success of his
+first visit to the great man, for whom he had the introductory
+letter from Mr. Walton.  To people of equal sensibility, the
+influence of those trifles we mentioned on his deportment will not
+appear surprising, but to his friends in the country they could not
+be stated, nor would they have allowed them any place in the
+account.  In some of their letters, therefore, which he received
+soon after, they expressed their surprise at his not having been
+more urgent in his application, and again recommended the blushless
+assiduity of successful merit.
+
+He resolved to make another attempt at the baronet's; fortified with
+higher notions of his own dignity, and with less apprehension of
+repulse.  In his way to Grosvenor Square he began to ruminate on the
+folly of mankind, who affixed those ideas of superiority to riches,
+which reduced the minds of men, by nature equal with the more
+fortunate, to that sort of servility which he felt in his own.  By
+the time he had reached the Square, and was walking along the
+pavement which led to the baronet's, he had brought his reasoning on
+the subject to such a point, that the conclusion, by every rule of
+logic, should have led him to a thorough indifference in his
+approaches to a fellow-mortal, whether that fellow-mortal was
+possessed of six or six thousand pounds a year.  It is probable,
+however, that the premises had been improperly formed:  for it is
+certain, that when he approached the great man's door he felt his
+heart agitated by an unusual pulsation.
+
+He had almost reached it, when he observed among gentleman coming
+out, dressed in a white frock and a red laced waistcoat, with a
+small switch in his hand, which he seemed to manage with a
+particular good grace.  As he passed him on the steps, the stranger
+very politely made him a bow, which Harley returned, though he could
+not remember ever having seen him before.  He asked Harley, in the
+same civil manner, if he was going to wait on his friend the
+baronet.  "For I was just calling," said he, "and am sorry to find
+that he is gone for some days into the country."
+
+Harley thanked him for his information, and was turning from the
+door, when the other observed that it would be proper to leave his
+name, and very obligingly knocked for that purpose.
+
+"Here is a gentleman, Tom, who meant to have waited on your master."
+
+"Your name, if you please, sir?"
+
+"Harley."
+
+"You'll remember, Tom, Harley."
+
+The door was shut.  "Since we are here," said he, "we shall not lose
+our walk if we add a little to it by a turn or two in Hyde Park."
+
+He accompanied this proposal with a second bow, and Harley accepted
+of it by another in return.
+
+The conversation, as they walked, was brilliant on the side of his
+companion.  The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high
+life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning
+beauties of quality in a manner the most feeling in the world.
+Harley admired the happiness of his vivacity, and, opposite as it
+was to the reserve of his own nature, began to be much pleased with
+its effects.
+
+Though I am not of opinion with some wise men, that the existence of
+objects depends on idea, yet I am convinced that their appearance is
+not a little influenced by it.  The optics of some minds are in so
+unlucky a perspective as to throw a certain shade on every picture
+that is presented to them, while those of others (of which number
+was Harley), like the mirrors of the ladies, have a wonderful effect
+in bettering their complexions.  Through such a medium perhaps he
+was looking on his present companion.
+
+When they had finished their walk, and were returning by the corner
+of the Park, they observed a board hung out of a window signifying,
+"An excellent ORDINARY on Saturdays and Sundays."  It happened to be
+Saturday, and the table was covered for the purpose.
+
+"What if we should go in and dine here, if you happen not to be
+engaged, sir?" said the young gentleman.  "It is not impossible but
+we shall meet with some original or other; it is a sort of humour I
+like hugely."
+
+Harley made no objection, and the stranger showed him the way into
+the parlour.
+
+He was placed, by the courtesy of his introductor, in an arm-chair
+that stood at one side of the fire.  Over against him was seated a
+man of a grave considering aspect, with that look of sober prudence
+which indicates what is commonly called a warm man.  He wore a
+pretty large wig, which had once been white, but was now of a
+brownish yellow; his coat was one of those modest-coloured drabs
+which mock the injuries of dust and dirt; two jack-boots concealed,
+in part, the well-mended knees of an old pair of buckskin breeches;
+while the spotted handkerchief round his neck preserved at once its
+owner from catching cold and his neck-cloth from being dirtied.
+Next him sat another man, with a tankard in his hand and a quid of
+tobacco in his cheek, whose eye was rather more vivacious, and whose
+dress was something smarter.
+
+The first-mentioned gentleman took notice that the room had been so
+lately washed, as not to have had time to dry, and remarked that wet
+lodging was unwholesome for man or beast.  He looked round at the
+same time for a poker to stir the fire with, which, he at last
+observed to the company, the people of the house had removed in
+order to save their coals.  This difficulty, however, he overcame by
+the help of Harley's stick, saying, "that as they should, no doubt,
+pay for their fire in some shape or other, he saw no reason why they
+should not have the use of it while they sat."
+
+The door was now opened for the admission of dinner.  "I don't know
+how it is with you, gentlemen," said Harley's new acquaintance, "but
+I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this horrid
+mechanical hour of dining."  He sat down, however, and did not show
+any want of appetite by his eating.  He took upon him the carving of
+the meat, and criticised on the goodness of the pudding.
+
+When the table-cloth was removed, he proposed calling for some
+punch, which was readily agreed to; he seemed at first inclined to
+make it himself, but afterwards changed his mind, and left that
+province to the waiter, telling him to have it pure West Indian, or
+he could not taste a drop of it.
+
+When the punch was brought he undertook to fill the glasses and call
+the toasts.  "The King."--The toast naturally produced politics.  It
+is the privilege of Englishmen to drink the king's health, and to
+talk of his conduct.  The man who sat opposite to Harley (and who by
+this time, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintance on
+his left hand, was discovered to be a grazier) observed, "That it
+was a shame for so many pensioners to be allowed to take the bread
+out of the mouth of the poor."
+
+"Ay, and provisions," said his friend, "were never so dear in the
+memory of man; I wish the king and his counsellors would look to
+that."
+
+"As for the matter of provisions, neighbour Wrightson," he replied,
+"I am sure the prices of cattle--"
+
+A dispute would have probably ensued, but it was prevented by the
+spruce toastmaster, who gave a sentiment, and turning to the two
+politicians, "Pray, gentlemen," said he, "let us have done with
+these musty politics:  I would always leave them to the beer-suckers
+in Butcher Row.  Come, let us have something of the fine arts.  That
+was a damn'd hard match between Joe the Nailor and Tim Bucket.  The
+knowing ones were cursedly taken in there!  I lost a cool hundred
+myself, faith."
+
+At mention of the cool hundred, the grazier threw his eyes aslant,
+with a mingled look of doubt and surprise; while the man at his
+elbow looked arch, and gave a short emphatical sort of cough.
+
+Both seemed to be silenced, however, by this intelligence; and while
+the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly
+engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great
+many "immense comical stories" and "confounded smart things," as he
+termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of
+quality, of his acquaintance.  At last, the grazier, pulling out a
+watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that he
+had an appointment.
+
+"Is it so late?" said the young gentleman; "then I am afraid I have
+missed an appointment already; but the truth is, I am cursedly given
+to missing of appointments."
+
+When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the remaining
+personage, and asked him if he knew that young gentleman.  "A
+gentleman!" said he; "ay, he is one of your gentlemen at the top of
+an affidavit.  I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a
+footman; and I believe he had some times the honour to be a pimp.
+At last, some of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in
+both capacities, had him made a gauger; in which station he remains,
+and has the assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of
+quality.  The impudent dog! with a few shillings in his pocket, he
+will talk you three times as much as my friend Mundy there, who is
+worth nine thousand if he's worth a farthing.  But I know the
+rascal, and despise him, as he deserves."
+
+Harley began to despise him too, and to conceive some indignation at
+having sat with patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense.  But
+he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well
+entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he
+should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to
+personate.  And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to
+that rank where the futility is real than where it is feigned:  to
+that rank whose opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only
+served to rear a fabric of folly which the untutored hand of
+affectation, even among the meanest of mankind, can imitate with
+success.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX--HE VISITS BEDLAM.--THE DISTRESSES OF A DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+Or those things called Sights in London, which every stranger is
+supposed desirous to see, Bedlam is one.  To that place, therefore,
+an acquaintance of Harley's, after having accompanied him to several
+other shows, proposed a visit.  Harley objected to it, "because,"
+said he, "I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest
+misery with which our nature is afflicted to every idle visitant who
+can afford a trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is
+a distress which the humane must see, with the painful reflection,
+that it is not in their power to alleviate it."  He was overpowered,
+however, by the solicitations of his friend and the other persons of
+the party (amongst whom were several ladies); and they went in a
+body to Moorfields.
+
+Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who
+are in the most horrid state of incurable madness.  The clanking of
+chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some
+of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking.  Harley and
+his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their
+guide to return; he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was
+with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without
+showing them some others:  who, as he expressed it in the phrase of
+those that keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing
+than any they had passed, being ten times more fierce and
+unmanageable.
+
+He led them next to that quarter where those reside who, as they are
+not dangerous to themselves or others, enjoy a certain degree of
+freedom, according to the state of their distemper.
+
+Harley had fallen behind his companions, looking at a man who was
+making pendulums with bits of thread and little balls of clay.  He
+had delineated a segment of a circle on the wall with chalk, and
+marked their different vibrations by intersecting it with cross
+lines.  A decent-looking man came up, and smiling at the maniac,
+turned to Harley, and told him that gentleman had once been a very
+celebrated mathematician.  "He fell a sacrifice," said he, "to the
+theory of comets; for having, with infinite labour, formed a table
+on the conjectures of Sir Isaac Newton, he was disappointed in the
+return of one of those luminaries, and was very soon after obliged
+to be placed here by his friends.  If you please to follow me, sir,"
+continued the stranger, "I believe I shall be able to give you a
+more satisfactory account of the unfortunate people you see here
+than the man who attends your companions."
+
+Harley bowed, and accepted his offer.
+
+The next person they came up to had scrawled a variety of figures on
+a piece of slate.  Harley had the curiosity to take a nearer view of
+them.  They consisted of different columns, on the top of which were
+marked South-sea annuities, India-stock, and Three per cent.
+annuities consol.  "This," said Harley's instructor, "was a
+gentleman well known in Change Alley.  He was once worth fifty
+thousand pounds, and had actually agreed for the purchase of an
+estate in the West, in order to realise his money; but he quarrelled
+with the proprietor about the repairs of the garden wall, and so
+returned to town, to follow his old trade of stock-jobbing a little
+longer; when an unlucky fluctuation of stock, in which he was
+engaged to an immense extent, reduced him at once to poverty and to
+madness.  Poor wretch! he told me t'other day that against the next
+payment of differences he should be some hundreds above a plum."
+
+"It is a spondee, and I will maintain it," interrupted a voice on
+his left hand.  This assertion was followed by a very rapid recital
+of some verses from Homer.  "That figure," said the gentleman,
+"whose clothes are so bedaubed with snuff, was a schoolmaster of
+some reputation:  he came hither to be resolved of some doubts he
+entertained concerning the genuine pronunciation of the Greek
+vowels.  In his highest fits, he makes frequent mention of one Mr.
+Bentley.
+
+"But delusive ideas, sir, are the motives of the greatest part of
+mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their actions
+are incited:  the world, in the eye of a philosopher, may be said to
+be a large madhouse."  "It is true," answered Harley, "the passions
+of men are temporary madnesses; and sometimes very fatal in their
+effects.
+
+
+From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."
+
+
+"It was, indeed," said the stranger, "a very mad thing in Charles to
+think of adding so vast a country as Russia to his dominions:  that
+would have been fatal indeed; the balance of the North would then
+have been lost; but the Sultan and I would never have allowed it."--
+"Sir!" said Harley, with no small surprise on his countenance.--
+"Why, yes," answered the other, "the Sultan and I; do you know me?
+I am the Chan of Tartary."
+
+Harley was a good deal struck by this discovery; he had prudence
+enough, however, to conceal his amazement, and bowing as low to the
+monarch as his dignity required, left him immediately, and joined
+his companions.
+
+He found them in a quarter of the house set apart for the insane of
+the other sex, several of whom had gathered about the female
+visitors, and were examining, with rather more accuracy than might
+have been expected, the particulars of their dress.
+
+Separate from the rest stood one whose appearance had something of
+superior dignity.  Her face, though pale and wasted, was less
+squalid than those of the others, and showed a dejection of that
+decent kind, which moves our pity unmixed with horror:  upon her,
+therefore, the eyes of all were immediately turned.  The keeper who
+accompanied them observed it:  "This," said he, "is a young lady who
+was born to ride in her coach and six.  She was beloved, if the
+story I have heard is true, by a young gentleman, her equal in
+birth, though by no means her match in fortune:  but love, they say,
+is blind, and so she fancied him as much as he did her.  Her father,
+it seems, would not hear of their marriage, and threatened to turn
+her out of doors if ever she saw him again.  Upon this the young
+gentleman took a voyage to the West Indies, in hopes of bettering
+his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he was scarce landed,
+when he was seized with one of the fevers which are common in those
+islands, and died in a few days, lamented by every one that knew
+him.  This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the same time
+pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was old
+enough to be her grandfather.  The death of her lover had no effect
+on her inhuman parent:  he was only the more earnest for her
+marriage with the man he had provided for her; and what between her
+despair at the death of the one, and her aversion to the other, the
+poor young lady was reduced to the condition you see her in.  But
+God would not prosper such cruelty; her father's affairs soon after
+went to wreck, and he died almost a beggar."
+
+Though this story was told in very plain language, it had
+particularly attracted Harley's notice; he had given it the tribute
+of some tears.  The unfortunate young lady had till now seemed
+entranced in thought, with her eyes fixed on a little garnet ring
+she wore on her finger; she turned them now upon Harley.  "My Billy
+is no more!" said she; "do you weep for my Billy?  Blessings on your
+tears!  I would weep too, but my brain is dry; and it burns, it
+burns, it burns!"--She drew nearer to Harley.--"Be comforted, young
+lady," said he, "your Billy is in heaven."--"Is he, indeed? and
+shall we meet again? and shall that frightful man (pointing to the
+keeper) not be there!--Alas!  I am grown naughty of late; I have
+almost forgotten to think of heaven:  yet I pray sometimes; when I
+can, I pray; and sometimes I sing; when I am saddest, I sing: --You
+shall hear me--hush!
+
+
+"Light be the earth on Billy's breast,
+And green the sod that wraps his grave."
+
+
+There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood; and,
+except the keeper's, there was not an unmoistened eye around her.
+
+"Do you weep again?" said she.  "I would not have you weep:  you are
+like my Billy; you are, believe me; just so he looked when he gave
+me this ring; poor Billy! 'twas the last time ever we met! -
+
+"'Twas when the seas were roaring--I love you for resembling my
+Billy; but I shall never love any man like him."--She stretched out
+her hand to Harley; he pressed it between both of his, and bathed it
+with his tears.--"Nay, that is Billy's ring," said she, "you cannot
+have it, indeed; but here is another, look here, which I plated to-
+day of some gold-thread from this bit of stuff; will you keep it for
+my sake?  I am a strange girl; but my heart is harmless:  my poor
+heart; it will burst some day; feel how it beats!"  She pressed his
+hand to her bosom, then holding her head in the attitude of
+listening--"Hark! one, two, three! be quiet, thou little trembler;
+my Billy is cold!--but I had forgotten the ring."--She put it on his
+finger.  "Farewell!  I must leave you now."--She would have
+withdrawn her hand; Harley held it to his lips.--"I dare not stay
+longer; my head throbs sadly:  farewell!"--She walked with a hurried
+step to a little apartment at some distance.  Harley stood fixed in
+astonishment and pity; his friend gave money to the keeper.--Harley
+looked on his ring.--He put a couple of guineas into the man's hand:
+"Be kind to that unfortunate."--He burst into tears, and left them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI--THE MISANTHROPE
+
+
+
+The friend who had conducted him to Moorfields called upon him again
+the next evening.  After some talk on the adventures of the
+preceding day:  "I carried you yesterday," said he to Harley, "to
+visit the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of
+the wise:  but you must not look for anything of the Socratic
+pleasantry about him; on the contrary, I warn you to expect the
+spirit of a Diogenes.  That you may be a little prepared for his
+extraordinary manner, I will let you into some particulars of his
+history.
+
+"He is the elder of the two sons of a gentleman of considerable
+estate in the country.  Their father died when they were young:
+both were remarkable at school for quickness of parts and extent of
+genius; this had been bred to no profession, because his father's
+fortune, which descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him
+above it; the other was put apprentice to an eminent attorney.  In
+this the expectations of his friends were more consulted than his
+own inclination; for both his brother and he had feelings of that
+warm kind that could ill brook a study so dry as the law, especially
+in that department of it which was allotted to him.  But the
+difference of their tempers made the characteristical distinction
+between them.  The younger, from the gentleness of his nature, bore
+with patience a situation entirely discordant to his genius and
+disposition.  At times, indeed, his pride would suggest of how
+little importance those talents were which the partiality of his
+friends had often extolled:  they were now incumbrances in a walk of
+life where the dull and the ignorant passed him at every turn; his
+fancy and his feeling were invincible obstacles to eminence in a
+situation where his fancy had no room for exertion, and his feeling
+experienced perpetual disgust.  But these murmurings he never
+suffered to be heard; and that he might not offend the prudence of
+those who had been concerned in the choice of his profession, he
+continued to labour in it several years, till, by the death of a
+relation, he succeeded to an estate of a little better than 100
+pounds a year, with which, and the small patrimony left him, he
+retired into the country, and made a love-match with a young lady of
+a similar temper to his own, with whom the sagacious world pitied
+him for finding happiness.
+
+"But his elder brother, whom you are to see at supper, if you will
+do us the favour of your company, was naturally impetuous, decisive,
+and overbearing.  He entered into life with those ardent
+expectations by which young men are commonly deluded:  in his
+friendships, warm to excess; and equally violent in his dislikes.
+He was on the brink of marriage with a young lady, when one of those
+friends, for whose honour he would have pawned his life, made an
+elopement with that very goddess, and left him besides deeply
+engaged for sums which that good friend's extravagance had
+squandered.
+
+"The dreams he had formerly enjoyed were now changed for ideas of a
+very different nature.  He abjured all confidence in anything of
+human form; sold his lands, which still produced him a very large
+reversion, came to town, and immured himself, with a woman who had
+been his nurse, in little better than a garret; and has ever since
+applied his talents to the vilifying of his species.  In one thing I
+must take the liberty to instruct you; however different your
+sentiments may be (and different they must be), you will suffer him
+to go on without contradiction; otherwise, he will be silent
+immediately, and we shall not get a word from him all the night
+after."  Harley promised to remember this injunction, and accepted
+the invitation of his friend.
+
+When they arrived at the house, they were informed that the
+gentleman was come, and had been shown into the parlour.  They found
+him sitting with a daughter of his friend's, about three years old,
+on his knee, whom he was teaching the alphabet from a horn book:  at
+a little distance stood a sister of hers, some years older.  "Get
+you away, miss," said he to this last; "you are a pert gossip, and I
+will have nothing to do with you."--"Nay," answered she, "Nancy is
+your favourite; you are quite in love with Nancy."--"Take away that
+girl," said he to her father, whom he now observed to have entered
+the room; "she has woman about her already."  The children were
+accordingly dismissed.
+
+Betwixt that and supper-time he did not utter a syllable.  When
+supper came, he quarrelled with every dish at table, but eat of them
+all; only exempting from his censures a salad, "which you have not
+spoiled," said he, "because you have not attempted to cook it."
+
+When the wine was set upon the table, he took from his pocket a
+particular smoking apparatus, and filled his pipe, without taking
+any more notice of Harley, or his friend, than if no such persons
+had been in the room.
+
+Harley could not help stealing a look of surprise at him; but his
+friend, who knew his humour, returned it by annihilating his
+presence in the like manner, and, leaving him to his own
+meditations, addressed himself entirely to Harley.
+
+In their discourse some mention happened to be made of an amiable
+character, and the words HONOUR and POLITENESS were applied to it.
+Upon this, the gentleman, laying down his pipe, and changing the
+tone of his countenance, from an ironical grin to something more
+intently contemptuous:  "Honour," said he:  "Honour and Politeness!
+this is the coin of the world, and passes current with the fools of
+it.  You have substituted the shadow Honour, instead of the
+substance Virtue; and have banished the reality of friendship for
+the fictitious semblance which you have termed Politeness:
+politeness, which consists in a certain ceremonious jargon, more
+ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice of a puppet.  You
+have invented sounds, which you worship, though they tyrannize over
+your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which take from the
+honest emotions of joy, and add to the poignancy of misfortune."
+"Sir!" said Harley--his friend winked to him, to remind him of the
+caution he had received.  He was silenced by the thought.  The
+philosopher turned his eye upon him:  he examined him from top to
+toe, with a sort of triumphant contempt; Harley's coat happened to
+be a new one; the other's was as shabby as could possibly be
+supposed to be on the back of a gentleman:  there was much
+significance in his look with regard to this coat; it spoke of the
+sleekness of folly and the threadbareness of wisdom.
+
+"Truth," continued he, "the most amiable, as well as the most
+natural of virtues, you are at pains to eradicate.  Your very
+nurseries are seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in
+manhood completes the system of avowed insincerity.  Mankind, in the
+gross, is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has
+seldom been disappointed:  nor is their vanity less fallacious to
+your philosophers, who adopt modes of truth to follow them through
+the paths of error, and defend paradoxes merely to be singular in
+defending them.  These are they whom ye term Ingenious; 'tis a
+phrase of commendation I detest:  it implies an attempt to impose on
+my judgment, by flattering my imagination; yet these are they whose
+works are read by the old with delight, which the young are taught
+to look upon as the codes of knowledge and philosophy.
+
+"Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you
+waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever
+spent an hour in discovering them; one promiscuous line of
+instruction is followed, without regard to genius, capacity, or
+probable situation in the commonwealth.  From this bear-garden of
+the pedagogue, a raw, unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the
+world to travel; without any ideas but those of improving his dress
+at Paris, or starting into taste by gazing on some paintings at
+Rome.  Ask him of the manners of the people, and he will tell you
+that the skirt is worn much shorter in France, and that everybody
+eats macaroni in Italy.  When he returns home, he buys a seat in
+parliament, and studies the constitution at Arthur's.
+
+"Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose:  they are
+taught, by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good
+behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every
+male visitor of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be
+married; and when they are grown somewhat older, are instructed that
+it is the purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pin-money,
+and the expectation of a jointure."
+
+"These, {61} indeed, are the effects of luxury, which is, perhaps,
+inseparable from a certain degree of power and grandeur in a nation.
+But it is not simply of the progress of luxury that we have to
+complain:  did its votaries keep in their own sphere of thoughtless
+dissipation, we might despise them without emotion; but the
+frivolous pursuits of pleasure are mingled with the most important
+concerns of the state; and public enterprise shall sleep till he who
+should guide its operation has decided his bets at Newmarket, or
+fulfilled his engagement with a favourite mistress in the country.
+We want some man of acknowledged eminence to point our counsels with
+that firmness which the counsels of a great people require.  We have
+hundreds of ministers, who press forward into office without having
+ever learned that art which is necessary for every business:  the
+art of thinking; and mistake the petulance, which could give
+inspiration to smart sarcasms on an obnoxious measure in a popular
+assembly, for the ability which is to balance the interest of
+kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of national
+superiority.  With the administration of such men the people can
+never be satisfied; for besides that their confidence is gained only
+by the view of superior talents, there needs that depth of
+knowledge, which is not only acquainted with the just extent of
+power, but can also trace its connection with the expedient, to
+preserve its possessors from the contempt which attends
+irresolution, or the resentment which follows temerity."
+
+* * * * *
+
+[Here a considerable part is wanting.]
+
+* * "In short, man is an animal equally selfish and vain.  Vanity,
+indeed, is but a modification of selfishness.  From the latter,
+there are some who pretend to be free:  they are generally such as
+declaim against the lust of wealth and power, because they have
+never been able to attain any high degree in either:  they boast of
+generosity and feeling.  They tell us (perhaps they tell us in
+rhyme) that the sensations of an honest heart, of a mind universally
+benevolent, make up the quiet bliss which they enjoy; but they will
+not, by this, be exempted from the charge of selfishness.  Whence
+the luxurious happiness they describe in their little family-
+circles?  Whence the pleasure which they feel, when they trim their
+evening fires, and listen to the howl of winter's wind?  Whence, but
+from the secret reflection of what houseless wretches feel from it?
+Or do you administer comfort in affliction--the motive is at hand; I
+have had it preached to me in nineteen out of twenty of your
+consolatory discourses--the comparative littleness of our own
+misfortunes.
+
+"With vanity your best virtues are grossly tainted:  your
+benevolence, which ye deduce immediately from the natural impulse of
+the heart, squints to it for its reward.  There are some, indeed,
+who tell us of the satisfaction which flows from a secret
+consciousness of good actions:  this secret satisfaction is truly
+excellent--when we have some friend to whom we may discover its
+excellence."
+
+He now paused a moment to re-light his pipe, when a clock, that
+stood at his back, struck eleven; he started up at the sound, took
+his hat and his cane, and nodding good night with his head, walked
+out of the room.  The gentleman of the house called a servant to
+bring the stranger's surtout.  "What sort of a night is it, fellow?"
+said he.--"It rains, sir," answered the servant, "with an easterly
+wind."--"Easterly for ever!"  He made no other reply; but shrugging
+up his shoulders till they almost touched his ears, wrapped himself
+tight in his great coat, and disappeared.
+
+"This is a strange creature," said his friend to Harley.  "I cannot
+say," answered he, "that his remarks are of the pleasant kind:  it
+is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the
+garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured
+into the severity of reproof:  yet this severity may be useful to
+some tempers; it somewhat resembles a file:  disagreeable in its
+operation, but hard metals may be the brighter for it."
+
+* * *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV--HIS SKILL IN PHYSIOGNOMY
+
+
+
+The company at the baronet's removed to the playhouse accordingly,
+and Harley took his usual route into the Park.  He observed, as he
+entered, a fresh-looking elderly gentleman in conversation with a
+beggar, who, leaning on his crutch, was recounting the hardships he
+had undergone, and explaining the wretchedness of his present
+condition.  This was a very interesting dialogue to Harley; he was
+rude enough, therefore, to slacken his pace as he approached, and at
+last to make a full stop at the gentleman's back, who was just then
+expressing his compassion for the beggar, and regretting that he had
+not a farthing of change about him.  At saying this, he looked
+piteously on the fellow:  there was something in his physiognomy
+which caught Harley's notice:  indeed, physiognomy was one of
+Harley's foibles, for which he had been often rebuked by his aunt in
+the country, who used to tell him that when he was come to her years
+and experience he would know that all's not gold that glitters:  and
+it must be owned that his aunt was a very sensible, harsh-looking
+maiden lady of threescore and upwards.  But he was too apt to forget
+this caution and now, it seems, it had not occurred to him.
+Stepping up, therefore, to the gentleman, who was lamenting the want
+of silver, "Your intentions, sir," said he, "are so good, that I
+cannot help lending you my assistance to carry them into execution,"
+and gave the beggar a shilling.  The other returned a suitable
+compliment, and extolled the benevolence of Harley.  They kept
+walking together, and benevolence grew the topic of discourse.
+
+The stranger was fluent on the subject.  "There is no use of money,"
+said he, "equal to that of beneficence.  With the profuse, it is
+lost; and even with those who lay it out according to the prudence
+of the world, the objects acquired by it pall on the sense, and have
+scarce become our own till they lose their value with the power of
+pleasing; but here the enjoyment grows on reflection, and our money
+is most truly ours when it ceases being in our possession.
+
+"Yet I agree in some measure," answered Harley, "with those who
+think that charity to our common beggars is often misplaced; there
+are objects less obtrusive whose title is a better one."
+
+"We cannot easily distinguish," said the stranger; "and even of the
+worthless, are there not many whose imprudence, or whose vice, may
+have been one dreadful consequence of misfortune?"
+
+Harley looked again in his face, and blessed himself for his skill
+in physiognomy.
+
+By this time they had reached the end of the walk, the old gentleman
+leaning on the rails to take breath, and in the meantime they were
+joined by a younger man, whose figure was much above the appearance
+of his dress, which was poor and shabby.  Harley's former companion
+addressed him as an acquaintance, and they turned on the walk
+together.
+
+The elder of the strangers complained of the closeness of the
+evening, and asked the other if he would go with him into a house
+hard by, and take one draught of excellent cyder.  "The man who
+keeps this house," said he to Harley, "was once a servant of mine.
+I could not think of turning loose upon the world a faithful old
+fellow, for no other reason but that his age had incapacitated him;
+so I gave him an annuity of ten pounds, with the help of which he
+has set up this little place here, and his daughter goes and sells
+milk in the city, while her father manages his tap-room, as he calls
+it, at home.  I can't well ask a gentleman of your appearance to
+accompany me to so paltry a place."  "Sir," replied Harley,
+interrupting him, "I would much rather enter it than the most
+celebrated tavern in town.  To give to the necessitous may sometimes
+be a weakness in the man; to encourage industry is a duty in the
+citizen."  They entered the house accordingly.
+
+On a table at the corner of the room lay a pack of cards, loosely
+thrown together.  The old gentleman reproved the man of the house
+for encouraging so idle an amusement.  Harley attempted to defend
+him from the necessity of accommodating himself to the humour of his
+guests, and taking up the cards, began to shuffle them backwards and
+forwards in his hand.  "Nay, I don't think cards so unpardonable an
+amusement as some do," replied the other; "and now and then, about
+this time of the evening, when my eyes begin to fail me for my book,
+I divert myself with a game at piquet, without finding my morals a
+bit relaxed by it.  Do you play piquet, sir?" (to Harley.)  Harley
+answered in the affirmative; upon which the other proposed playing a
+pool at a shilling the game, doubling the stakes; adding, that he
+never played higher with anybody.
+
+Harley's good nature could not refuse the benevolent old man; and
+the younger stranger, though he at first pleaded prior engagements,
+yet being earnestly solicited by his friend, at last yielded to
+solicitation.
+
+When they began to play, the old gentleman, somewhat to the surprise
+of Harley, produced ten shillings to serve for markers of his score.
+"He had no change for the beggar," said Harley to himself; "but I
+can easily account for it; it is curious to observe the affection
+that inanimate things will create in us by a long acquaintance.  If
+I may judge from my own feelings, the old man would not part with
+one of these counters for ten times its intrinsic value; it even got
+the better of his benevolence!  I, myself, have a pair of old brass
+sleeve buttons."  Here he was interrupted by being told that the old
+gentleman had beat the younger, and that it was his turn to take up
+the conqueror.  "Your game has been short," said Harley.  "I re-
+piqued him," answered the old man, with joy sparkling in his
+countenance.  Harley wished to be re-piqued too, but he was
+disappointed; for he had the same good fortune against his opponent.
+Indeed, never did fortune, mutable as she is, delight in mutability
+so much as at that moment.  The victory was so quick, and so
+constantly alternate, that the stake, in a short time, amounted to
+no less a sum than 12 pounds, Harley's proportion of which was
+within half-a-guinea of the money he had in his pocket.  He had
+before proposed a division, but the old gentleman opposed it with
+such a pleasant warmth in his manner, that it was always over-ruled.
+Now, however, he told them that he had an appointment with some
+gentlemen, and it was within a few minutes of his hour.  The young
+stranger had gained one game, and was engaged in the second with the
+other; they agreed, therefore, that the stake should be divided, if
+the old gentleman won that:  which was more than probable, as his
+score was 90 to 35, and he was elder hand; but a momentous re-pique
+decided it in favour of his adversary, who seemed to enjoy his
+victory mingled with regret, for having won too much, while his
+friend, with great ebullience of passion, many praises of his own
+good play, and many malediction's on the power of chance, took up
+the cards, and threw them into the fire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI--FRUITS OF THE DEAD SEA
+
+
+
+The company he was engaged to meet were assembled in Fleet Street.
+He had walked some time along the Strand, amidst a crowd of those
+wretches who wait the uncertain wages of prostitution, with ideas of
+pity suitable to the scene around him and the feelings he possessed,
+and had got as far as Somerset House, when one of them laid hold of
+his arm, and, with a voice tremulous and faint, asked him for a pint
+of wine, in a manner more supplicatory than is usual with those whom
+the infamy of their profession has deprived of shame.  He turned
+round at the demand, and looked steadfastly on the person who made
+it.
+
+She was above the common size, and elegantly formed; her face was
+thin and hollow, and showed the remains of tarnished beauty.  Her
+eyes were black, but had little of their lustre left; her cheeks had
+some paint laid on without art, and productive of no advantage to
+her complexion, which exhibited a deadly paleness on the other parts
+of her face.
+
+Harley stood in the attitude of hesitation; which she, interpreting
+to her advantage, repeated her request, and endeavoured to force a
+leer of invitation into her countenance.  He took her arm, and they
+walked on to one of those obsequious taverns in the neighbourhood,
+where the dearness of the wine is a discharge in full for the
+character of the house.  From what impulse he did this we do not
+mean to enquire; as it has ever been against our nature to search
+for motives where bad ones are to be found.  They entered, and a
+waiter showed them a room, and placed a bottle of claret on the
+table.
+
+Harley filled the lady's glass:  which she had no sooner tasted,
+than dropping it on the floor, and eagerly catching his arm, her eye
+grew fixed, her lip assumed a clayey whiteness, and she fell back
+lifeless in her chair.
+
+Harley started from his seat, and, catching her in his arms,
+supported her from falling to the ground, looking wildly at the
+door, as if he wanted to run for assistance, but durst not leave the
+miserable creature.  It was not till some minutes after that it
+occurred to him to ring the bell, which at last, however, he thought
+of, and rung with repeated violence even after the waiter appeared.
+Luckily the waiter had his senses somewhat more about him; and
+snatching up a bottle of water, which stood on a buffet at the end
+of the room, he sprinkled it over the hands and face of the dying
+figure before him.  She began to revive, and, with the assistance of
+some hartshorn drops, which Harley now for the first time drew from
+his pocket, was able to desire the waiter to bring her a crust of
+bread, of which she swallowed some mouthfuls with the appearance of
+the keenest hunger.  The waiter withdrew:  when turning to Harley,
+sobbing at the same time, and shedding tears, "I am sorry, sir,"
+said she, "that I should have given you so much trouble; but you
+will pity me when I tell you that till now I have not tasted a
+morsel these two days past."--He fixed his eyes on hers--every
+circumstance but the last was forgotten; and he took her hand with
+as much respect as if she had been a duchess.  It was ever the
+privilege of misfortune to be revered by him.--"Two days!" said he;
+"and I have fared sumptuously every day!"--He was reaching to the
+bell; she understood his meaning, and prevented him.  "I beg, sir,"
+said she, "that you would give yourself no more trouble about a
+wretch who does not wish to live; but, at present, I could not eat a
+bit; my stomach even rose at the last mouthful of that crust."--He
+offered to call a chair, saying that he hoped a little rest would
+relieve her.--He had one half-guinea left.  "I am sorry," he said,
+"that at present I should be able to make you an offer of no more
+than this paltry sum."--She burst into tears:  "Your generosity,
+sir, is abused; to bestow it on me is to take it from the virtuous.
+I have no title but misery to plead:  misery of my own procuring."
+"No more of that," answered Harley; "there is virtue in these tears;
+let the fruit of them be virtue."--He rung, and ordered a chair.--
+"Though I am the vilest of beings," said she, "I have not forgotten
+every virtue; gratitude, I hope, I shall still have left, did I but
+know who is my benefactor."--"My name is Harley."--"Could I ever
+have an opportunity?"--"You shall, and a glorious one too! your
+future conduct--but I do not mean to reproach you--if, I say--it
+will be the noblest reward--I will do myself the pleasure of seeing
+you again."--Here the waiter entered, and told them the chair was at
+the door; the lady informed Harley of her lodgings, and he promised
+to wait on her at ten next morning.
+
+He led her to the chair, and returned to clear with the waiter,
+without ever once reflecting that he had no money in his pocket.  He
+was ashamed to make an excuse; yet an excuse must be made:  he was
+beginning to frame one, when the waiter cut him short by telling him
+that he could not run scores; but that, if he would leave his watch,
+or any other pledge, it would be as safe as if it lay in his pocket.
+Harley jumped at the proposal, and pulling out his watch, delivered
+it into his hands immediately, and having, for once, had the
+precaution to take a note of the lodging he intended to visit next
+morning, sallied forth with a blush of triumph on his face, without
+taking notice of the sneer of the waiter, who, twirling the watch in
+his hand, made him a profound bow at the door, and whispered to a
+girl, who stood in the passage, something, in which the word CULLY
+was honoured with a particular emphasis.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII--HIS SKILL IN PHYSIOGNOMY IS DOUBTED
+
+
+
+After he had been some time with the company he had appointed to
+meet, and the last bottle was called for, he first recollected that
+he would be again at a loss how to discharge his share of the
+reckoning.  He applied, therefore, to one of them, with whom he was
+most intimate, acknowledging that he had not a farthing of money
+about him; and, upon being jocularly asked the reason, acquainted
+them with the two adventures we have just now related.  One of the
+company asked him if the old man in Hyde Park did not wear a
+brownish coat, with a narrow gold edging, and his companion an old
+green frock, with a buff-coloured waistcoat.  Upon Harley's
+recollecting that they did, "Then," said he, "you may be thankful
+you have come off so well; they are two as noted sharpers, in their
+way, as any in town, and but t'other night took me in for a much
+larger sum.  I had some thoughts of applying to a justice, but one
+does not like to be seen in those matters."
+
+Harley answered, "That he could not but fancy the gentleman was
+mistaken, as he never saw a face promise more honesty than that of
+the old man he had met with."--"His face!" said a grave-looking man,
+when sat opposite to him, squirting the juice of his tobacco
+obliquely into the grate.  There was something very emphatical in
+the action, for it was followed by a burst of laughter round the
+table.  "Gentlemen," said Harley, "you are disposed to be merry; it
+may be as you imagine, for I confess myself ignorant of the town;
+but there is one thing which makes me hear the loss of my money with
+temper:  the young fellow who won it must have been miserably poor;
+I observed him borrow money for the stake from his friend:  he had
+distress and hunger in his countenance:  be his character what it
+may, his necessities at least plead for him."  At this there was a
+louder laugh than before.  "Gentlemen," said the lawyer, one of
+whose conversations with Harley we have already recorded, "here's a
+pretty fellow for you! to have heard him talk some nights ago, as I
+did, you might have sworn he was a saint; yet now he games with
+sharpers, and loses his money, and is bubbled by a fine tale of the
+Dead Sea, and pawns his watch; here are sanctified doings with a
+witness!"
+
+"Young gentleman," said his friend on the other side of the table,
+"let me advise you to be a little more cautious for the future; and
+as for faces--you may look into them to know whether a man's nose be
+a long or a short one."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII--HE KEEPS HIS APPOINTMENT
+
+
+
+The last night's raillery of his companions was recalled to his
+remembrance when he awoke, and the colder homilies of prudence began
+to suggest some things which were nowise favourable for a
+performance of his promise to the unfortunate female he had met with
+before.  He rose, uncertain of his purpose; but the torpor of such
+considerations was seldom prevalent over the warmth of his nature.
+He walked some turns backwards and forwards in his room; he recalled
+the languid form of the fainting wretch to his mind; he wept at the
+recollection of her tears.  "Though I am the vilest of beings, I
+have not forgotten every virtue; gratitude, I hope, I shall still
+have left."--He took a larger stride--"Powers of mercy that surround
+me!" cried he, "do ye not smile upon deeds like these? to calculate
+the chances of deception is too tedious a business for the life of
+man!"--The clock struck ten.--When he was got down-stairs, he found
+that he had forgot the note of her lodgings; he gnawed his lips at
+the delay:  he was fairly on the pavement, when he recollected
+having left his purse; he did but just prevent himself from
+articulating an imprecation.  He rushed a second time up into his
+chamber.  "What a wretch I am!" said he; "ere this time, perhaps--"
+'Twas a perhaps not to be borne;--two vibrations of a pendulum would
+have served him to lock his bureau; but they could not be spared.
+
+When he reached the house, and inquired for Miss Atkins (for that
+was the lady's name), he was shown up three pair of stairs, into a
+small room lighted by one narrow lattice, and patched round with
+shreds of different-coloured paper.  In the darkest corner stood
+something like a bed, before which a tattered coverlet hung by way
+of curtain.  He had not waited long when she appeared.  Her face had
+the glister of new-washed tears on it.  "I am ashamed, sir," said
+she, "that you should have taken this fresh piece of trouble about
+one so little worthy of it; but, to the humane, I know there is a
+pleasure in goodness for its own sake:  if you have patience for the
+recital of my story, it may palliate, though it cannot excuse, my
+faults."  Harley bowed, as a sign of assent; and she began as
+follows:-
+
+"I am the daughter of an officer, whom a service of forty years had
+advanced no higher than the rank of captain.  I have had hints from
+himself, and been informed by others, that it was in some measure
+owing to those principles of rigid honour, which it was his boast to
+possess, and which he early inculcated on me, that he had been able
+to arrive at no better station.  My mother died when I was a child:
+old enough to grieve for her death, but incapable of remembering her
+precepts.  Though my father was doatingly fond of her, yet there
+were some sentiments in which they materially differed:  she had
+been bred from her infancy in the strictest principles of religion,
+and took the morality of her conduct from the motives which an
+adherence to those principles suggested.  My father, who had been in
+the army from his youth, affixed an idea of pusillanimity to that
+virtue, which was formed by the doctrines, excited by the rewards,
+or guarded by the terrors of revelation; his dashing idol was the
+honour of a soldier:  a term which he held in such reverence, that
+he used it for his most sacred asseveration.  When my mother died, I
+was some time suffered to continue in those sentiments which her
+instructions had produced; but soon after, though, from respect to
+her memory, my father did not absolutely ridicule them, yet he
+showed, in his discourse to others, so little regard to them, and at
+times suggested to me motives of action so different, that I was
+soon weaned from opinions which I began to consider as the dreams of
+superstition, or the artful inventions of designing hypocrisy.  My
+mother's books were left behind at the different quarters we removed
+to, and my reading was principally confined to plays, novels, and
+those poetical descriptions of the beauty of virtue and honour,
+which the circulating libraries easily afforded.
+
+"As I was generally reckoned handsome, and the quickness of my parts
+extolled by all our visitors, my father had a pride in allowing me
+to the world.  I was young, giddy, open to adulation, and vain of
+those talents which acquired it.
+
+"After the last war, my father was reduced to half-pay; with which
+we retired to a village in the country, which the acquaintance of
+some genteel families who resided in it, and the cheapness of
+living, particularly recommended.  My father rented a small house,
+with a piece of ground sufficient to keep a horse for him, and a cow
+for the benefit of his family.  An old man servant managed his
+ground; while a maid, who had formerly been my mother's, and had
+since been mine, undertook the care of our little dairy:  they were
+assisted in each of their provinces by my father and me:  and we
+passed our time in a state of tranquillity, which he had always
+talked of with delight, and my train of reading had taught me to
+admire.
+
+"Though I had never seen the polite circles of the metropolis, the
+company my father had introduced me into had given me a degree of
+good breeding, which soon discovered a superiority over the young
+ladies of our village.  I was quoted as an example of politeness,
+and my company courted by most of the considerable families in the
+neighbourhood.
+
+"Amongst the houses where I was frequently invited was Sir George
+Winbrooke's.  He had two daughters nearly of my age, with whom,
+though they had been bred up in those maxims of vulgar doctrine
+which my superior understanding could not but despise, yet as their
+good nature led them to an imitation of my manners in everything
+else, I cultivated a particular friendship.
+
+"Some months after our first acquaintance, Sir George's eldest son
+came home from his travels.  His figure, his address, and
+conversation, were not unlike those warm ideas of an accomplished
+man which my favourite novels had taught me to form; and his
+sentiments on the article of religion were as liberal as my own:
+when any of these happened to be the topic of our discourse, I, who
+before had been silent, from a fear of being single in opposition,
+now kindled at the fire he raised, and defended our mutual opinions
+with all the eloquence I was mistress of.  He would be respectfully
+attentive all the while; and when I had ended, would raise his eyes
+from the ground, look at me with a gaze of admiration, and express
+his applause in the highest strain of encomium.  This was an incense
+the more pleasing, as I seldom or never had met with it before; for
+the young gentlemen who visited Sir George were for the most part of
+that athletic order, the pleasure of whose lives is derived from
+fox-hunting:  these are seldom solicitous to please the women at
+all; or if they were, would never think of applying their flattery
+to the mind.
+
+"Mr. Winbrooke observed the weakness of my soul, and took every
+occasion of improving the esteem he had gained.  He asked my opinion
+of every author, of every sentiment, with that submissive
+diffidence, which showed an unlimited confidence in my
+understanding.  I saw myself revered, as a superior being, by one
+whose judgment my vanity told me was not likely to err:  preferred
+by him to all the other visitors of my sex, whose fortunes and rank
+should have entitled them to a much higher degree of notice:  I saw
+their little jealousies at the distinguished attention he paid me;
+it was gratitude, it was pride, it was love!  Love which had made
+too fatal a progress in my heart, before any declaration on his part
+should have warranted a return:  but I interpreted every look of
+attention, every expression of compliment, to the passion I imagined
+him inspired with, and imputed to his sensibility that silence which
+was the effect of art and design.  At length, however, he took an
+opportunity of declaring his love:  he now expressed himself in such
+ardent terms, that prudence might have suspected their sincerity:
+but prudence is rarely found in the situation I had been unguardedly
+led into; besides, that the course of reading to which I had been
+accustomed, did not lead me to conclude, that his expressions could
+be too warm to be sincere:  nor was I even alarmed at the manner in
+which he talked of marriage, a subjection, he often hinted, to which
+genuine love should scorn to be confined.  The woman, he would often
+say, who had merit like mine to fix his affection, could easily
+command it for ever.  That honour too which I revered, was often
+called in to enforce his sentiments.  I did not, however, absolutely
+assent to them; but I found my regard for their opposites diminish
+by degrees.  If it is dangerous to be convinced, it is dangerous to
+listen; for our reason is so much of a machine, that it will not
+always be able to resist, when the ear is perpetually assailed.
+
+"In short, Mr. Harley (for I tire you with a relation, the
+catastrophe of which you will already have imagined), I fell a prey
+to his artifices.  He had not been able so thoroughly to convert me,
+that my conscience was silent on the subject; but he was so
+assiduous to give repeated proofs of unabated affection, that I
+hushed its suggestions as they rose.  The world, however, I knew,
+was not to be silenced; and therefore I took occasion to express my
+uneasiness to my seducer, and entreat him, as he valued the peace of
+one to whom he professed such attachment, to remove it by a
+marriage.  He made excuse from his dependence on the will of his
+father, but quieted my fears by the promise of endeavouring to win
+his assent.
+
+"My father had been some days absent on a visit to a dying relation,
+from whom he had considerable expectations.  I was left at home,
+with no other company than my books:  my books I found were not now
+such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy,
+unsatisfied with myself.  But judge my situation when I received a
+billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir
+George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to
+any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was
+obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the
+remembrance of which should ever be dear to him.
+
+"I read this letter a hundred times over.  Alone, helpless,
+conscious of guilt, and abandoned by every better thought, my mind
+was one motley scene of terror, confusion, and remorse.  A thousand
+expedients suggested themselves, and a thousand fears told me they
+would be vain:  at last, in an agony of despair, I packed up a few
+clothes, took what money and trinkets were in the house, and set out
+for London, whither I understood he was gone; pretending to my maid,
+that I had received letters from my father requiring my immediate
+attendance.  I had no other companion than a boy, a servant to the
+man from whom I hired my horses.  I arrived in London within an hour
+of Mr. Winbrooke, and accidentally alighted at the very inn where he
+was.
+
+"He started and turned pale when he saw me; but recovered himself in
+time enough to make many new protestations of regard, and beg me to
+make myself easy under a disappointment which was equally afflicting
+to him.  He procured me lodgings, where I slept, or rather
+endeavoured to sleep, for that night.  Next morning I saw him again,
+he then mildly observed on the imprudence of my precipitate flight
+from the country, and proposed my removing to lodgings at another
+end of the town, to elude the search of my father, till he should
+fall upon some method of excusing my conduct to him, and reconciling
+him to my return.  We took a hackney-coach, and drove to the house
+he mentioned.
+
+"It was situated in a dirty lane, furnished with a tawdry
+affectation of finery, with some old family pictures hanging on
+walls which their own cobwebs would better have suited.  I was
+struck with a secret dread at entering, nor was it lessened by the
+appearance of the landlady, who had that look of selfish shrewdness,
+which, of all others, is the most hateful to those whose feelings
+are untinctured with the world.  A girl, who she told us was her
+niece, sat by her, playing on a guitar, while herself was at work,
+with the assistance of spectacles, and had a prayer-book with the
+leaves folded down in several places, lying on the table before her.
+Perhaps, sir, I tire you with my minuteness, but the place, and
+every circumstance about it, is so impressed on my mind, that I
+shall never forget it.
+
+"I dined that day with Mr. Winbrooke alone.  He lost by degrees that
+restraint which I perceived too well to hang about him before, and,
+with his former gaiety and good humour, repeated the flattering
+things which, though they had once been fatal, I durst not now
+distrust.  At last, taking my hand and kissing it, 'It is thus,'
+said he, 'that love will last, while freedom is preserved; thus let
+us ever be blessed, without the galling thought that we are tied to
+a condition where we may cease to be so.'
+
+"I answered, 'That the world thought otherwise:  that it had certain
+ideas of good fame, which it was impossible not to wish to
+maintain.'
+
+"'The world,' said he, 'is a tyrant, they are slaves who obey it;
+let us be happy without the pale of the world.  To-morrow I shall
+leave this quarter of it, for one where the talkers of the world
+shall be foiled, and lose us.  Could not my Emily accompany me? my
+friend, my companion, the mistress of my soul!  Nay, do not look so,
+Emily!  Your father may grieve for a while, but your father shall be
+taken care of; this bank-bill I intend as the comfort for his
+daughter.'
+
+"I could contain myself no longer:  'Wretch,' I exclaimed, 'dost
+thou imagine that my father's heart could brook dependence on the
+destroyer of his child, and tamely accept of a base equivalent for
+her honour and his own?'
+
+"'Honour, my Emily,' said he, 'is the word of fools, or of those
+wiser men who cheat them.  'Tis a fantastic bauble that does not
+suit the gravity of your father's age; but, whatever it is, I am
+afraid it can never be perfectly restored to you:  exchange the word
+then, and let pleasure be your object now.'
+
+"At these words he clasped me in his arms, and pressed his lips
+rudely to my bosom.  I started from my seat.  'Perfidious villain!'
+said I, 'who dar'st insult the weakness thou hast undone; were that
+father here, thy coward soul would shrink from the vengeance of his
+honour!  Cursed be that wretch who has deprived him of it! oh doubly
+cursed, who has dragged on his hoary head the infamy which should
+have crushed her own!'  I snatched a knife which lay beside me, and
+would have plunged it in my breast, but the monster prevented my
+purpose, and smiling with a grin of barbarous insult -
+
+"'Madam,' said he, 'I confess you are rather too much in heroics for
+me; I am sorry we should differ about trifles; but as I seem somehow
+to have offended you, I would willingly remedy it by taking my
+leave.  You have been put to some foolish expense in this journey on
+my account; allow me to reimburse you.'
+
+"So saying he laid a bank-bill, of what amount I had no patience to
+see, upon the table.  Shame, grief, and indignation choked my
+utterance; unable to speak my wrongs, and unable to bear them in
+silence, I fell in a swoon at his feet.
+
+"What happened in the interval I cannot tell, but when I came to
+myself I was in the arms of the landlady, with her niece chafing my
+temples, and doing all in her power for my recovery.  She had much
+compassion in her countenance; the old woman assumed the softest
+look she was capable of, and both endeavoured to bring me comfort.
+They continued to show me many civilities, and even the aunt began
+to be less disagreeable in my sight.  To the wretched, to the
+forlorn, as I was, small offices of kindness are endearing.
+
+"Meantime my money was far spent, nor did I attempt to conceal my
+wants from their knowledge.  I had frequent thoughts of returning to
+my father; but the dread of a life of scorn is insurmountable.  I
+avoided, therefore, going abroad when I had a chance of being seen
+by any former acquaintance, nor indeed did my health for a great
+while permit it; and suffered the old woman, at her own suggestion,
+to call me niece at home, where we now and then saw (when they could
+prevail on me to leave my room) one or two other elderly women, and
+sometimes a grave business-like man, who showed great compassion for
+my indisposition, and made me very obligingly an offer of a room at
+his country-house for the recovery of my health.  This offer I did
+not chose to accept, but told my landlady, 'that I should be glad to
+be employed in any way of business which my skill in needlework
+could recommend me to, confessing, at the same time, that I was
+afraid I should scarce be able to pay her what I already owed for
+board and lodging, and that for her other good offices, I had
+nothing but thanks to give her.'
+
+"'My dear child,' said she, 'do not talk of paying; since I lost my
+own sweet girl' (here she wept), 'your very picture she was, Miss
+Emily, I have nobody, except my niece, to whom I should leave any
+little thing I have been able to save; you shall live with me, my
+dear; and I have sometimes a little millinery work, in which, when
+you are inclined to it, you may assist us.  By the way, here are a
+pair of ruffles we have just finished for that gentleman you saw
+here at tea; a distant relation of mine, and a worthy man he is.
+'Twas pity you refused the offer of an apartment at his country
+house; my niece, you know, was to have accompanied you, and you
+might have fancied yourself at home; a most sweet place it is, and
+but a short mile beyond Hampstead.  Who knows, Miss Emily, what
+effect such a visit might have had!  If I had half your beauty I
+should not waste it pining after e'er a worthless fellow of them
+all.'
+
+"I felt my heart swell at her words; I would have been angry if I
+could, but I was in that stupid state which is not easily awakened
+to anger:  when I would have chid her the reproof stuck in my
+throat; I could only weep!
+
+"Her want of respect increased, as I had not spirit to assert it.
+My work was now rather imposed than offered, and I became a drudge
+for the bread I eat:  but my dependence and servility grew in
+proportion, and I was now in a situation which could not make any
+extraordinary exertions to disengage itself from either--I found
+myself with child.
+
+"At last the wretch, who had thus trained me to destruction, hinted
+the purpose for which those means had been used.  I discovered her
+to be an artful procuress for the pleasures of those who are men of
+decency to the world in the midst of debauchery.
+
+"I roused every spark of courage within me at the horrid proposal.
+She treated my passion at first somewhat mildly, but when I
+continued to exert it she resented it with insult, and told me
+plainly that if I did not soon comply with her desires I should pay
+her every farthing I owed, or rot in a jail for life.  I trembled at
+the thought; still, however, I resisted her importunities, and she
+put her threats in execution.  I was conveyed to prison, weak from
+my condition, weaker from that struggle of grief and misery which
+for some time I had suffered.  A miscarriage was the consequence.
+
+"Amidst all the horrors of such a state, surrounded with wretches
+totally callous, lost alike to humanity and to shame, think, Mr.
+Harley, think what I endured; nor wonder that I at last yielded to
+the solicitations of that miscreant I had seen at her house, and
+sunk to the prostitution which he tempted.  But that was happiness
+compared to what I have suffered since.  He soon abandoned me to the
+common use of the town, and I was cast among those miserable beings
+in whose society I have since remained.
+
+"Oh! did the daughters of virtue know our sufferings; did they see
+our hearts torn with anguish amidst the affectation of gaiety which
+our faces are obliged to assume! our bodies tortured by disease, our
+minds with that consciousness which they cannot lose!  Did they
+know, did they think of this, Mr. Harley!  Their censures are just,
+but their pity perhaps might spare the wretches whom their justice
+should condemn.
+
+"Last night, but for an exertion of benevolence which the infection
+of our infamy prevents even in the humane, had I been thrust out
+from this miserable place which misfortune has yet left me; exposed
+to the brutal insults of drunkenness, or dragged by that justice
+which I could not bribe, to the punishment which may correct, but,
+alas! can never amend the abandoned objects of its terrors.  From
+that, Mr. Harley, your goodness has relieved me."
+
+He beckoned with his hand:  he would have stopped the mention of his
+favours; but he could not speak, had it been to beg a diadem.
+
+She saw his tears; her fortitude began to fail at the sight, when
+the voice of some stranger on the stairs awakened her attention.
+She listened for a moment, then starting up, exclaimed, "Merciful
+God! my father's voice!"
+
+She had scarce uttered the word, when the door burst open, and a man
+entered in the garb of an officer.  When he discovered his daughter
+and Harley, he started back a few paces; his look assumed a furious
+wildness! he laid his hand on his sword.  The two objects of his
+wrath did not utter a syllable.
+
+"Villain," he cried, "thou seest a father who had once a daughter's
+honour to preserve; blasted as it now is, behold him ready to avenge
+its loss!"
+
+Harley had by this time some power of utterance.  "Sir," said he,
+"if you will be a moment calm--"
+
+"Infamous coward!" interrupted the other, "dost thou preach calmness
+to wrongs like mine!"
+
+He drew his sword.
+
+"Sir," said Harley, "let me tell you"--the blood ran quicker to his
+cheek, his pulse beat one, no more, and regained the temperament of
+humanity--"you are deceived, sir," said he, "you are much deceived;
+but I forgive suspicions which your misfortunes have justified:  I
+would not wrong you, upon my soul I would not, for the dearest
+gratification of a thousand worlds; my heart bleeds for you!"
+
+His daughter was now prostrate at his feet.
+
+"Strike," said she, "strike here a wretch, whose misery cannot end
+but with that death she deserves."
+
+Her hair had fallen on her shoulders! her look had the horrid
+calmness of out-breathed despair!  Her father would have spoken; his
+lip quivered, his cheek grew pale, his eyes lost the lightning of
+their fury! there was a reproach in them, but with a mingling of
+pity.  He turned them up to heaven, then on his daughter.  He laid
+his left hand on his heart, the sword dropped from his right, he
+burst into tears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX--THE DISTRESSES OF A FATHER
+
+
+
+Harley kneeled also at the side of the unfortunate daughter.
+
+"Allow me, sir," said he, "to entreat your pardon for one whose
+offences have been already so signally punished.  I know, I feel,
+that those tears, wrung from the heart of a father, are more
+dreadful to her than all the punishments your sword could have
+inflicted:  accept the contrition of a child whom heaven has
+restored to you."
+
+"Is she not lost," answered he, "irrecoverably lost?  Damnation! a
+common prostitute to the meanest ruffian!"
+
+"Calmly, my dear sir," said Harley, "did you know by what
+complicated misfortunes she had fallen to that miserable state in
+which you now behold her, I should have no need of words to excite
+your compassion.  Think, sir, of what once she was.  Would you
+abandon her to the insults of an unfeeling world, deny her
+opportunity of penitence, and cut off the little comfort that still
+remains for your afflictions and her own!"
+
+"Speak," said he, addressing himself to his daughter; "speak; I will
+hear thee."
+
+The desperation that supported her was lost; she fell to the ground,
+and bathed his feet with her tears.
+
+Harley undertook her cause:  he related the treacheries to which she
+had fallen a sacrifice, and again solicited the forgiveness of her
+father.  He looked on her for some time in silence; the pride of a
+soldier's honour checked for a while the yearnings of his heart; but
+nature at last prevailed, he fell on her neck and mingled his tears
+with hers.
+
+Harley, who discovered from the dress of the stranger that he was
+just arrived from a journey, begged that they would both remove to
+his lodgings, till he could procure others for them.  Atkins looked
+at him with some marks of surprise.  His daughter now first
+recovered the power of speech.
+
+"Wretch as I am," said she, "yet there is some gratitude due to the
+preserver of your child.  See him now before you.  To him I owe my
+life, or at least the comfort of imploring your forgiveness before I
+die."
+
+"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Atkins, "I fear my passion
+wronged you."
+
+"Never, never, sir," said Harley "if it had, your reconciliation to
+your daughter were an atonement a thousand fold."  He then repeated
+his request that he might be allowed to conduct them to his
+lodgings, to which Mr. Atkins at last consented.  He took his
+daughter's arm.
+
+"Come, my Emily," said he, "we can never, never recover that
+happiness we have lost! but time may teach us to remember our
+misfortunes with patience."
+
+When they arrived at the house where Harley lodged, he was informed
+that the first floor was then vacant, and that the gentleman and his
+daughter might be accommodated there.  While he was upon his
+enquiry, Miss Atkins informed her father more particularly what she
+owed to his benevolence.  When he turned into the room where they
+were Atkins ran and embraced him;--begged him again to forgive the
+offence he had given him, and made the warmest protestations of
+gratitude for his favours.  We would attempt to describe the joy
+which Harley felt on this occasion, did it not occur to us that one
+half of the world could not understand it though we did, and the
+other half will, by this time, have understood it without any
+description at all.
+
+Miss Atkins now retired to her chamber, to take some rest from the
+violence of the emotions she had suffered.  When she was gone, her
+father, addressing himself to Harley, said, "You have a right, sir,
+to be informed of the present situation of one who owes so much to
+your compassion for his misfortunes.  My daughter I find has
+informed you what that was at the fatal juncture when they began.
+Her distresses you have heard, you have pitied as they deserved;
+with mine, perhaps, I cannot so easily make you acquainted.  You
+have a feeling heart, Mr. Harley; I bless it that it has saved my
+child; but you never were a father, a father torn by that most
+dreadful of calamities, the dishonour of a child he doated on!  You
+have been already informed of some of the circumstances of her
+elopement:  I was then from home, called by the death of a relation,
+who, though he would never advance me a shilling on the utmost
+exigency in his life-time, left me all the gleanings of his
+frugality at his death.  I would not write this intelligence to my
+daughter, because I intended to be the bearer myself; and as soon as
+my business would allow me, I set out on my return, winged with all
+the haste of paternal affection.  I fondly built those schemes of
+future happiness, which present prosperity is ever busy to suggest:
+my Emily was concerned in them all.  As I approached our little
+dwelling my heart throbbed with the anticipation of joy and welcome.
+I imagined the cheering fire, the blissful contentment of a frugal
+meal, made luxurious by a daughter's smile, I painted to myself her
+surprise at the tidings of our new-acquired riches, our fond
+disputes about the disposal of them.
+
+"The road was shortened by the dreams of happiness I enjoyed, and it
+began to be dark as I reached the house:  I alighted from my horse,
+and walked softly upstairs to the room we commonly sat in.  I was
+somewhat disappointed at not finding my daughter there.  I rung the
+bell; her maid appeared, and shewed no small signs of wonder at the
+summons.  She blessed herself as she entered the room:  I smiled at
+her surprise.  'Where is Miss Emily, sir?' said she.
+
+"'Emily!'
+
+"'Yes, sir; she has been gone hence some days, upon receipt of those
+letters you sent her.'
+
+"'Letters!' said I.
+
+"'Yes, sir, so she told me, and went off in all haste that very
+night.'
+
+"I stood aghast as she spoke, but was able so far to recollect
+myself, as to put on the affectation of calmness, and telling her
+there was certainly some mistake in the affair, desired her to leave
+me.
+
+"When she was gone, I threw myself into a chair, in that state of
+uncertainty which is, of all others, the most dreadful.  The gay
+visions with which I had delighted myself, vanished in an instant.
+I was tortured with tracing back the same circle of doubt and
+disappointment.  My head grew dizzy as I thought.  I called the
+servant again, and asked her a hundred questions, to no purpose;
+there was not room even for conjecture.
+
+"Something at last arose in my mind, which we call Hope, without
+knowing what it is.  I wished myself deluded by it; but it could not
+prevail over my returning fears.  I rose and walked through the
+room.  My Emily's spinnet stood at the end of it, open, with a book
+of music folded down at some of my favourite lessons.  I touched the
+keys; there was a vibration in the sound that froze my blood; I
+looked around, and methought the family pictures on the walls gazed
+on me with compassion in their faces.  I sat down again with an
+attempt at more composure; I started at every creaking of the door,
+and my ears rung with imaginary noises!
+
+"I had not remained long in this situation, when the arrival of a
+friend, who had accidentally heard of my return, put an end to my
+doubts, by the recital of my daughter's dishonour.  He told me he
+had his information from a young gentleman, to whom Winbrooke had
+boasted of having seduced her.
+
+"I started from my seat, with broken curses on my lips, and without
+knowing whither I should pursue them, ordered my servant to load my
+pistols and saddle my horses.  My friend, however, with great
+difficulty, persuaded me to compose myself for that night, promising
+to accompany me on the morrow, to Sir George Winbrooke's in quest of
+his son.
+
+"The morrow came, after a night spent in a state little distant from
+madness.  We went as early as decency would allow to Sir George's.
+He received me with politeness, and indeed compassion, protested his
+abhorrence of his son's conduct, and told me that he had set out
+some days before for London, on which place he had procured a draft
+for a large sum, on pretence of finishing his travels, but that he
+had not heard from him since his departure.
+
+"I did not wait for any more, either of information or comfort, but,
+against the united remonstrances of Sir George and my friend, set
+out instantly for London, with a frantic uncertainty of purpose; but
+there, all manner of search was in vain.  I could trace neither of
+them any farther than the inn where they first put up on their
+arrival; and after some days fruitless inquiry, returned home
+destitute of every little hope that had hitherto supported me.  The
+journeys I had made, the restless nights I had spent, above all, the
+perturbation of my mind, had the effect which naturally might be
+expected--a very dangerous fever was the consequence.  From this,
+however, contrary to the expectation of my physicians, I recovered.
+It was now that I first felt something like calmness of mind:
+probably from being reduced to a state which could not produce the
+exertions of anguish or despair.  A stupid melancholy settled on my
+soul; I could endure to live with an apathy of life; at times I
+forgot my resentment, and wept at the remembrance of my child.
+
+"Such has been the tenor of my days since that fatal moment when
+these misfortunes began, till yesterday, that I received a letter
+from a friend in town, acquainting me of her present situation.
+Could such tales as mine, Mr. Harley, be sometimes suggested to the
+daughters of levity, did they but know with what anxiety the heart
+of a parent flutters round the child he loves, they would be less
+apt to construe into harshness that delicate concern for their
+conduct, which they often complain of as laying restraint upon
+things, to the young, the gay, and the thoughtless, seemingly
+harmless and indifferent.  Alas!  I fondly imagined that I needed
+not even these common cautions! my Emily was the joy of my age, and
+the pride of my soul!  Those things are now no more, they are lost
+for ever!  Her death I could have born, but the death of her honour
+has added obloquy and shame to that sorrow which bends my grey hairs
+to the dust!"
+
+As he spoke these last words, his voice trembled in his throat; it
+was now lost in his tears.  He sat with his face half turned from
+Harley, as if he would have hid the sorrow which he felt.  Harley
+was in the same attitude himself; he durst not meet his eye with a
+tear, but gathering his stifled breath, "Let me entreat you, sir,"
+said he, "to hope better things.  The world is ever tyrannical; it
+warps our sorrows to edge them with keener affliction.  Let us not
+be slaves to the names it affixes to motive or to action.  I know an
+ingenuous mind cannot help feeling when they sting.  But there are
+considerations by which it may be overcome.  Its fantastic ideas
+vanish as they rise; they teach us to look beyond it."
+
+* * * * *
+
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.  SHOWING HIS SUCCESS WITH THE BARONET
+
+
+
+* * The card he received was in the politest style in which
+disappointment could be communicated.  The baronet "was under a
+necessity of giving up his application for Mr. Harley, as he was
+informed that the lease was engaged for a gentleman who had long
+served His Majesty in another capacity, and whose merit had entitled
+him to the first lucrative thing that should be vacant."  Even
+Harley could not murmur at such a disposal.  "Perhaps," said he to
+himself, "some war-worn officer, who, like poor Atkins, had been
+neglected from reasons which merited the highest advancement; whose
+honour could not stoop to solicit the preferment he deserved;
+perhaps, with a family, taught the principles of delicacy, without
+the means of supporting it; a wife and children--gracious heaven!
+whom my wishes would have deprived of bread--"
+
+He was interrupted in his reverie by some one tapping him on the
+shoulder, and, on turning round, he discovered it to be the very man
+who had explained to him the condition of his gay companion at Hyde
+Park Corner.  "I am glad to see you, sir," said he; "I believe we
+are fellows in disappointment."  Harley started, and said that he
+was at a loss to understand him.  "Pooh! you need not be so shy,"
+answered the other; "every one for himself is but fair, and I had
+much rather you had got it than the rascally gauger."  Harley still
+protested his ignorance of what he meant.  "Why, the lease of
+Bancroft Manor; had not you been applying for it?"  "I confess I
+was," replied Harley; "but I cannot conceive how you should be
+interested in the matter."  "Why, I was making interest for it
+myself," said he, "and I think I had some title.  I voted for this
+same baronet at the last election, and made some of my friends do so
+too; though I would not have you imagine that I sold my vote.  No, I
+scorn it, let me tell you I scorn it; but I thought as how this man
+was staunch and true, and I find he's but a double-faced fellow
+after all, and speechifies in the House for any side he hopes to
+make most by.  Oh, how many fine speeches and squeezings by the hand
+we had of him on the canvas!  'And if ever I shall be so happy as to
+have an opportunity of serving you.'  A murrain on the smooth-
+tongued knave, and after all to get it for this pimp of a gauger."
+"The gauger! there must be some mistake," said Harley.  "He writes
+me, that it was engaged for one whose long services--"  "Services!"
+interrupted the other; "you shall hear.  Services!  Yes, his sister
+arrived in town a few days ago, and is now sempstress to the
+baronet.  A plague on all rogues, says honest Sam Wrightson.  I
+shall but just drink damnation to them to-night, in a crown's worth
+of Ashley's, and leave London to-morrow by sun-rise."  "I shall
+leave it too," said Harley; and so he accordingly did.
+
+In passing through Piccadilly, he had observed, on the window of an
+inn, a notification of the departure of a stage-coach for a place in
+his road homewards; in the way back to his lodgings, he took a seat
+in it for his return.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII--HE LEAVES LONDON--CHARACTERS IN A STAGE-COACH
+
+
+
+The company in the stage-coach consisted of a grocer and his wife,
+who were going to pay a visit to some of their country friends; a
+young officer, who took this way of marching to quarters; a middle-
+aged gentlewoman, who had been hired as housekeeper to some family
+in the country; and an elderly, well-looking man, with a remarkable
+old-fashioned periwig.
+
+Harley, upon entering, discovered but one vacant seat, next the
+grocer's wife, which, from his natural shyness of temper, he made no
+scruple to occupy, however aware that riding backwards always
+disagreed with him.
+
+Though his inclination to physiognomy had met with some rubs in the
+metropolis, he had not yet lost his attachment to that science.  He
+set himself, therefore, to examine, as usual, the countenances of
+his companions.  Here, indeed, he was not long in doubt as to the
+preference; for besides that the elderly gentleman, who sat opposite
+to him, had features by nature more expressive of good dispositions,
+there was something in that periwig we mentioned, peculiarly
+attractive of Harley's regard.
+
+He had not been long employed in these speculations, when he found
+himself attacked with that faintish sickness, which was the natural
+consequence of his situation in the coach.  The paleness of his
+countenance was first observed by the housekeeper, who immediately
+made offer of her smelling bottle, which Harley, however, declined,
+telling at the same time the cause of his uneasiness.  The
+gentleman, on the opposite side of the coach, now first turned his
+eye from the side direction in which it had been fixed, and begged
+Harley to exchange places with him, expressing his regret that he
+had not made the proposal before.  Harley thanked him, and, upon
+being assured that both seats were alike to him, was about to accept
+of his offer, when the young gentleman of the sword, putting on an
+arch look, laid hold of the other's arm.  "So, my old boy," said he,
+"I find you have still some youthful blood about you, but, with your
+leave, I will do myself the honour of sitting by this lady;" and
+took his place accordingly.  The grocer stared him as full in the
+face as his own short neck would allow, and his wife, who was a
+little, round-faced woman, with a great deal of colour in her
+cheeks, drew up at the compliment that was paid her, looking first
+at the officer, and then at the housekeeper.
+
+This incident was productive of some discourse; for before, though
+there was sometimes a cough or a hem from the grocer, and the
+officer now and then humm'd a few notes of a song, there had not a
+single word passed the lips of any of the company.
+
+Mrs. Grocer observed, how ill-convenient it was for people, who
+could not be drove backwards, to travel in a stage.  This brought on
+a dissertation on stage-coaches in general, and the pleasure of
+keeping a chay of one's own; which led to another, on the great
+riches of Mr. Deputy Bearskin, who, according to her, had once been
+of that industrious order of youths who sweep the crossings of the
+streets for the conveniency of passengers, but, by various fortunate
+accidents, had now acquired an immense fortune, and kept his coach
+and a dozen livery servants.  All this afforded ample fund for
+conversation, if conversation it might be called, that was carried
+on solely by the before-mentioned lady, nobody offering to interrupt
+her, except that the officer sometimes signified his approbation by
+a variety of oaths, a sort of phraseology in which he seemed
+extremely versant.  She appealed indeed, frequently, to her husband
+for the authenticity of certain facts, of which the good man as
+often protested his total ignorance; but as he was always called
+fool, or something very like it, for his pains, he at last contrived
+to support the credit of his wife without prejudice to his
+conscience, and signified his assent by a noise not unlike the
+grunting of that animal which in shape and fatness he somewhat
+resembled.
+
+The housekeeper, and the old gentleman who sat next to Harley, were
+now observed to be fast asleep, at which the lady, who had been at
+such pains to entertain them, muttered some words of displeasure,
+and, upon the officer's whispering to smoke the old put, both she
+and her husband purs'd up their mouths into a contemptuous smile.
+Harley looked sternly on the grocer.  "You are come, sir," said he,
+"to those years when you might have learned some reverence for age.
+As for this young man, who has so lately escaped from the nursery,
+he may be allowed to divert himself."  "Dam'me, sir!" said the
+officer, "do you call me young?" striking up the front of his hat,
+and stretching forward on his seat, till his face almost touched
+Harley's.  It is probable, however, that he discovered something
+there which tended to pacify him, for, on the ladies entreating them
+not to quarrel, he very soon resumed his posture and calmness
+together, and was rather less profuse of his oaths during the rest
+of the journey.
+
+It is possible the old gentleman had waked time enough to hear the
+last part of this discourse; at least (whether from that cause, or
+that he too was a physiognomist) he wore a look remarkably
+complacent to Harley, who, on his part, shewed a particular
+observance of him.  Indeed, they had soon a better opportunity of
+making their acquaintance, as the coach arrived that night at the
+town where the officer's regiment lay, and the places of destination
+of their other fellow-travellers, it seems, were at no great
+distance, for, next morning, the old gentleman and Harley were the
+only passengers remaining.
+
+When they left the inn in the morning, Harley, pulling out a little
+pocket-book, began to examine the contents, and make some
+corrections with a pencil.  "This," said he, turning to his
+companion, "is an amusement with which I sometimes pass idle hours
+at an inn.  These are quotations from those humble poets, who trust
+their fame to the brittle tenure of windows and drinking-glasses."
+"From our inn," returned the gentleman, "a stranger might imagine
+that we were a nation of poets; machines, at least, containing
+poetry, which the motion of a journey emptied of their contents.  Is
+it from the vanity of being thought geniuses, or a mere mechanical
+imitation of the custom of others, that we are tempted to scrawl
+rhyme upon such places?"
+
+"Whether vanity is the cause of our becoming rhymesters or not,"
+answered Harley, "it is a pretty certain effect of it.  An old man
+of my acquaintance, who deals in apothegms, used to say that he had
+known few men without envy, few wits without ill-nature, and no poet
+without vanity; and I believe his remark is a pretty just one.
+Vanity has been immemorially the charter of poets.  In this, the
+ancients were more honest than we are.  The old poets frequently
+make boastful predictions of the immortality their works shall
+acquire them; ours, in their dedications and prefatory discourses,
+employ much eloquence to praise their patrons, and much seeming
+modesty to condemn themselves, or at least to apologise for their
+productions to the world.  But this, in my opinion, is the more
+assuming manner of the two; for of all the garbs I ever saw Pride
+put on, that of her humility is to me the most disgusting."
+
+"It is natural enough for a poet to be vain," said the stranger.
+"The little worlds which he raises, the inspiration which he claims,
+may easily be productive of self-importance; though that inspiration
+is fabulous, it brings on egotism, which is always the parent of
+vanity."
+
+"It may be supposed," answered Harley, "that inspiration of old was
+an article of religious faith; in modern times it may be translated
+a propensity to compose; and I believe it is not always most readily
+found where the poets have fixed its residence, amidst groves and
+plains, and the scenes of pastoral retirement.  The mind may be
+there unbent from the cares of the world, but it will frequently, at
+the same time, be unnerved from any great exertion.  It will feel
+imperfect, and wander without effort over the regions of
+reflection."
+
+"There is at least," said the stranger, "one advantage in the
+poetical inclination, that it is an incentive to philanthropy.
+There is a certain poetic ground, on which a man cannot tread
+without feelings that enlarge the heart:  the causes of human
+depravity vanish before the romantic enthusiasm he professes, and
+many who are not able to reach the Parnassian heights, may yet
+approach so near as to be bettered by the air of the climate."
+
+"I have always thought so," replied Harley; "but this is an argument
+with the prudent against it:  they urge the danger of unfitness for
+the world."
+
+"I allow it," returned the other; "but I believe it is not always
+rightfully imputed to the bent for poetry:  that is only one effect
+of the common cause.--Jack, says his father, is indeed no scholar;
+nor could all the drubbings from his master ever bring him one step
+forward in his accidence or syntax:  but I intend him for a
+merchant.--Allow the same indulgence to Tom.--Tom reads Virgil and
+Horace when he should be casting accounts; and but t'other day he
+pawned his great-coat for an edition of Shakespeare.--But Tom would
+have been as he is, though Virgil and Horace had never been born,
+though Shakespeare had died a link-boy; for his nurse will tell you,
+that when he was a child, he broke his rattle, to discover what it
+was that sounded within it; and burnt the sticks of his go-cart,
+because he liked to see the sparkling of timber in the fire.--'Tis a
+sad case; but what is to be done?--Why, Jack shall make a fortune,
+dine on venison, and drink claret.--Ay, but Tom--Tom shall dine with
+his brother, when his pride will let him; at other times, he shall
+bless God over a half-pint of ale and a Welsh-rabbit; and both shall
+go to heaven as they may.--That's a poor prospect for Tom, says the
+father.--To go to heaven!  I cannot agree with him."
+
+"Perhaps," said Harley, "we now-a-days discourage the romantic turn
+a little too much.  Our boys are prudent too soon.  Mistake me not,
+I do not mean to blame them for want of levity or dissipation; but
+their pleasures are those of hackneyed vice, blunted to every finer
+emotion by the repetition of debauch; and their desire of pleasure
+is warped to the desire of wealth, as the means of procuring it.
+The immense riches acquired by individuals have erected a standard
+of ambition, destructive of private morals, and of public virtue.
+The weaknesses of vice are left us; but the most allowable of our
+failings we are taught to despise.  Love, the passion most natural
+to the sensibility of youth, has lost the plaintive dignity he once
+possessed, for the unmeaning simper of a dangling coxcomb; and the
+only serious concern, that of a dowry, is settled, even amongst the
+beardless leaders of the dancing-school.  The Frivolous and the
+Interested (might a satirist say) are the characteristical features
+of the age; they are visible even in the essays of our philosophers.
+They laugh at the pedantry of our fathers, who complained of the
+times in which they lived; they are at pains to persuade us how much
+those were deceived; they pride themselves in defending things as
+they find them, and in exploding the barren sounds which had been
+reared into motives for action.  To this their style is suited; and
+the manly tone of reason is exchanged for perpetual efforts at sneer
+and ridicule.  This I hold to be an alarming crisis in the
+corruption of a state; when not only is virtue declined, and vice
+prevailing, but when the praises of virtue are forgotten, and the
+infamy of vice unfelt."
+
+They soon after arrived at the next inn upon the route of the stage-
+coach, when the stranger told Harley, that his brother's house, to
+which he was returning, lay at no great distance, and he must
+therefore unwillingly bid him adieu.
+
+"I should like," said Harley, taking his hand, "to have some word to
+remember so much seeming worth by:  my name is Harley."
+
+"I shall remember it," answered the old gentleman, "in my prayers;
+mine is Silton."
+
+And Silton indeed it was!  Ben Silton himself!  Once more, my
+honoured friend, farewell!--Born to be happy without the world, to
+that peaceful happiness which the world has not to bestow!  Envy
+never scowled on thy life, nor hatred smiled on thy grave.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV--HE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+
+When the stage-coach arrived at the place of its destination, Harley
+began to consider how he should proceed the remaining part of his
+journey.  He was very civilly accosted by the master of the inn, who
+offered to accommodate him either with a post-chaise or horses, to
+any distance he had a mind:  but as he did things frequently in a
+way different from what other people call natural, he refused these
+offers, and set out immediately a-foot, having first put a spare
+shirt in his pocket, and given directions for the forwarding of his
+portmanteau.  This was a method of travelling which he was
+accustomed to take:  it saved the trouble of provision for any
+animal but himself, and left him at liberty to chose his quarters,
+either at an inn, or at the first cottage in which he saw a face he
+liked:  nay, when he was not peculiarly attracted by the reasonable
+creation, he would sometimes consort with a species of inferior
+rank, and lay himself down to sleep by the side of a rock, or on the
+banks of a rivulet.  He did few things without a motive, but his
+motives were rather eccentric:  and the useful and expedient were
+terms which he held to be very indefinite, and which therefore he
+did not always apply to the sense in which they are commonly
+understood.
+
+The sun was now in his decline, and the evening remarkably serene,
+when he entered a hollow part of the road, which winded between the
+surrounding banks, and seamed the sward in different lines, as the
+choice of travellers had directed them to tread it.  It seemed to be
+little frequented now, for some of those had partly recovered their
+former verdure.  The scene was such as induced Harley to stand and
+enjoy it; when, turning round, his notice was attracted by an
+object, which the fixture of his eye on the spot he walked had
+before prevented him from observing.
+
+An old man, who from his dress seemed to have been a soldier, lay
+fast asleep on the ground; a knapsack rested on a stone at his right
+hand, while his staff and brass-hilted sword were crossed at his
+left.
+
+Harley looked on him with the most earnest attention.  He was one of
+those figures which Salvator would have drawn; nor was the
+surrounding scenery unlike the wildness of that painter's back-
+grounds.  The banks on each side were covered with fantastic shrub-
+wood, and at a little distance, on the top of one of them, stood a
+finger-post, to mark the directions of two roads which diverged from
+the point where it was placed.  A rock, with some dangling wild
+flowers, jutted out above where the soldier lay; on which grew the
+stump of a large tree, white with age, and a single twisted branch
+shaded his face as he slept.  His face had the marks of manly
+comeliness impaired by time; his forehead was not altogether bald,
+but its hairs might have been numbered; while a few white locks
+behind crossed the brown of his neck with a contrast the most
+venerable to a mind like Harley's.  "Thou art old," said he to
+himself; "but age has not brought thee rest for its infirmities; I
+fear those silver hairs have not found shelter from thy country,
+though that neck has been bronzed in its service."  The stranger
+waked.  He looked at Harley with the appearance of some confusion:
+it was a pain the latter knew too well to think of causing in
+another; he turned and went on.  The old man re-adjusted his
+knapsack, and followed in one of the tracks on the opposite side of
+the road.
+
+When Harley heard the tread of his feet behind him, he could not
+help stealing back a glance at his fellow-traveller.  He seemed to
+bend under the weight of his knapsack; he halted on his walk, and
+one of his arms was supported by a sling, and lay motionless across
+his breast.  He had that steady look of sorrow, which indicates that
+its owner has gazed upon his griefs till he has forgotten to lament
+them; yet not without those streaks of complacency which a good mind
+will sometimes throw into the countenance, through all the incumbent
+load of its depression.
+
+He had now advanced nearer to Harley, and, with an uncertain sort of
+voice, begged to know what it was o'clock; "I fear," said he, "sleep
+has beguiled me of my time, and I shall hardly have light enough
+left to carry me to the end of my journey."
+
+"Father!" said Harley (who by this time found the romantic
+enthusiasm rising within him) "how far do you mean to go?"
+
+"But a little way, sir," returned the other; "and indeed it is but a
+little way I can manage now:  'tis just four miles from the height
+to the village, thither I am going."
+
+"I am going there too," said Harley; "we may make the road shorter
+to each other.  You seem to have served your country, sir, to have
+served it hardly too; 'tis a character I have the highest esteem
+for.--I would not be impertinently inquisitive; but there is that in
+your appearance which excites my curiosity to know something more of
+you; in the meantime, suffer me to carry that knapsack."
+
+The old man gazed on him; a tear stood in his eye!  "Young
+gentleman," said he, "you are too good; may Heaven bless you for an
+old man's sake, who has nothing but his blessing to give! but my
+knapsack is so familiar to my shoulders, that I should walk the
+worse for wanting it; and it would be troublesome to you, who have
+not been used to its weight."
+
+"Far from it," answered Harley, "I should tread the lighter; it
+would be the most honourable badge I ever wore."
+
+"Sir," said the stranger, who had looked earnestly in Harley's face
+during the last part of his discourse, "is act your name Harley?"
+
+"It is," replied he; "I am ashamed to say I have forgotten yours."
+
+"You may well have forgotten my face," said the stranger;--"'tis a
+long time since you saw it; but possibly you may remember something
+of old Edwards."
+
+"Edwards!" cried Harley, "oh! heavens!" and sprung to embrace him;
+"let me clasp those knees on which I have sat so often:  Edwards!--I
+shall never forget that fire-side, round which I have been so happy!
+But where, where have you been? where is Jack? where is your
+daughter?  How has it fared with them, when fortune, I fear, has
+been so unkind to you?"
+
+"'Tis a long tale," replied Edwards; "but I will try to tell it you
+as we walk.
+
+"When you were at school in the neighbourhood, you remember me at
+South-hill:  that farm had been possessed by my father, grandfather,
+and great-grandfather, which last was a younger brother of that very
+man's ancestor, who is now lord of the manor.  I thought I managed
+it, as they had done, with prudence; I paid my rent regularly as it
+became due, and had always as much behind as gave bread to me and my
+children.  But my last lease was out soon after you left that part
+of the country; and the squire, who had lately got a London-attorney
+for his steward, would not renew it, because, he said, he did not
+chuse to have any farm under 300 pounds a year value on his estate;
+but offered to give me the preference on the same terms with
+another, if I chose to take the one he had marked out, of which mine
+was a part.
+
+"What could I do, Mr. Harley?  I feared the undertaking was too
+great for me; yet to leave, at my age, the house I had lived in from
+my cradle!  I could not, Mr. Harley, I could not; there was not a
+tree about it that I did not look on as my father, my brother, or my
+child:  so I even ran the risk, and took the squire's offer of the
+whole.  But had soon reason to repent of my bargain; the steward had
+taken care that my former farm should be the best land of the
+division:  I was obliged to hire more servants, and I could not have
+my eye over them all; some unfavourable seasons followed one
+another, and I found my affairs entangling on my hands.  To add to
+my distress, a considerable corn-factor turned bankrupt with a sum
+of mine in his possession:  I failed paying my rent so punctually as
+I was wont to do, and the same steward had my stock taken in
+execution in a few days after.  So, Mr. Harley, there was an end of
+my prosperity.  However, there was as much produced from the sale of
+my effects as paid my debts and saved me from a jail:  I thank God I
+wronged no man, and the world could never charge me with dishonesty.
+
+"Had you seen us, Mr. Harley, when we were turned out of South-hill,
+I am sure you would have wept at the sight.  You remember old
+Trusty, my shag house-dog; I shall never forget it while I live; the
+poor creature was blind with age, and could scarce crawl after us to
+the door; he went however as far as the gooseberry-bush that you may
+remember stood on the left side of the yard; he was wont to bask in
+the sun there; when he had reached that spot, he stopped; we went
+on:  I called to him; he wagged his tail, but did not stir:  I
+called again; he lay down:  I whistled, and cried Trusty; he gave a
+short howl, and died!  I could have lain down and died too; but God
+gave me strength to live for my children."
+
+The old man now paused a moment to take breath.  He eyed Harley's
+face; it was bathed with tears:  the story was grown familiar to
+himself; he dropped one tear, and no more.
+
+"Though I was poor," continued he, "I was not altogether without
+credit.  A gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had a small farm
+unoccupied at the time, offered to let me have it, on giving
+security for the rent; which I made shift to procure.  It was a
+piece of ground which required management to make anything of; but
+it was nearly within the compass of my son's labour and my own.  We
+exerted all our industry to bring it into some heart.  We began to
+succeed tolerably and lived contented on its produce, when an
+unlucky accident brought us under the displeasure of a neighbouring
+justice of the peace, and broke all our family-happiness again.
+
+"My son was a remarkable good shooter; he-had always kept a pointer
+on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when one
+day, having sprung a covey in our own ground, the dog, of his own
+accord, followed them into the justice's.  My son laid down his gun,
+and went after his dog to bring him back:  the game-keeper, who had
+marked the birds, came up, and seeing the pointer, shot him just as
+my son approached.  The creature fell; my son ran up to him:  he
+died with a complaining sort of cry at his master's feet.  Jack
+could bear it no longer; but, flying at the game-keeper, wrenched
+his gun out of his hand, and with the butt end of it, felled him to
+the ground.
+
+"He had scarce got home, when a constable came with a warrant, and
+dragged him to prison; there he lay, for the justices would not take
+bail, till he was tried at the quarter-sessions for the assault and
+battery.  His fine was hard upon us to pay:  we contrived however to
+live the worse for it, and make up the loss by our frugality:  but
+the justice was not content with that punishment, and soon after had
+an opportunity of punishing us indeed.
+
+"An officer with press-orders came down to our county, and having
+met with the justices, agreed that they should pitch on a certain
+number, who could most easily be spared from the county, of whom he
+would take care to clear it:  my son's name was in the justices'
+list.
+
+"'Twas on a Christmas eve, and the birth-day too of my son's little
+boy.  The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with showers
+of hail and snow.  We had made up a cheering fire in an inner room;
+I sat before it in my wicker-chair; blessing providence, that had
+still left a shelter for me and my children.  My son's two little
+ones were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the
+sight:  I brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes
+were forgotten.
+
+"It had long been our custom to play a game at blind man's buff on
+that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my
+son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who
+happened to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old
+maid servant, who had lived with me from a child.  The lot fell on
+my son to be blindfolded:  we had continued some time in our game,
+when he groped his way into an outer room in pursuit of some of us,
+who, he imagined, had taken shelter there; we kept snug in our
+places, and enjoyed his mistake.  He had not been long there, when
+he was suddenly seized from behind; 'I shall have you now,' said he,
+and turned about.  'Shall you so, master?' answered the ruffian, who
+had laid hold of him; 'we shall make you play at another sort of
+game by and by.'"--At these words Harley started with a convulsive
+sort of motion, and grasping Edwards's sword, drew it half out of
+the scabbard, with a look of the most frantic wildness.  Edwards
+gently replaced it in its sheath, and went on with his relation.
+
+"On hearing these words in a strange voice, we all rushed out to
+discover the cause; the room by this time was almost full of the
+gang.  My daughter-in-law fainted at the sight; the maid and I ran
+to assist her, while my poor son remained motionless, gazing by
+turns on his children and their mother.  We soon recovered her to
+life, and begged her to retire and wait the issue of the affair; but
+she flew to her husband, and clung round him in an agony of terror
+and grief.
+
+"In the gang was one of a smoother aspect, whom, by his dress, we
+discovered to be a serjeant of foot:  he came up to me, and told me,
+that my son had his choice of the sea or land service, whispering at
+the same time that, if he chose the land, he might get off, on
+procuring him another man, and paying a certain sum for his freedom.
+The money we could just muster up in the house, by the assistance of
+the maid, who produced, in a green bag, all the little savings of
+her service; but the man we could not expect to find.  My daughter-
+in-law gazed upon her children with a look of the wildest despair:
+'My poor infants!' said she, 'your father is forced from you; who
+shall now labour for your bread? or must your mother beg for herself
+and you?'  I prayed her to be patient; but comfort I had none to
+give her.  At last, calling the serjeant aside, I asked him, 'If I
+was too old to be accepted in place of my son?'
+
+"'Why, I don't know,' said he; 'you are rather old to be sure, but
+yet the money may do much.'
+
+"I put the money in his hand, and coming back to my children,
+'Jack,' said I, 'you are free; live to give your wife and these
+little ones bread; I will go, my child, in your stead; I have but
+little life to lose, and if I staid, I should add one to the
+wretches you left behind.'
+
+"'No,' replied my son, 'I am not that coward you imagine me; heaven
+forbid that my father's grey hairs should be so exposed, while I sat
+idle at home; I am young and able to endure much, and God will take
+care of you and my family.'
+
+"'Jack,' said I, 'I will put an end to this matter, you have never
+hitherto disobeyed me; I will not be contradicted in this; stay at
+home, I charge you, and, for my sake, be kind to my children.'
+
+"Our parting, Mr. Harley, I cannot describe to you; it was the first
+time we ever had parted:  the very press-gang could scarce keep from
+tears; but the serjeant, who had seemed the softest before, was now
+the least moved of them all.  He conducted me to a party of new-
+raised recruits, who lay at a village in the neighbourhood; and we
+soon after joined the regiment.  I had not been long with it when we
+were ordered to the East Indies, where I was soon made a serjeant,
+and might have picked up some money, if my heart had been as hard as
+some others were; but my nature was never of that kind, that could
+think of getting rich at the expense of my conscience.
+
+"Amongst our prisoners was an old Indian, whom some of our officers
+supposed to have a treasure hidden somewhere; which is no uncommon
+practice in that country.  They pressed him to discover it.  He
+declared he had none, but that would not satisfy them, so they
+ordered him to be tied to a stake, and suffer fifty lashes every
+morning till he should learn to speak out, as they said.  Oh! Mr.
+Harley, had you seen him, as I did, with his hands bound behind him,
+suffering in silence, while the big drops trickled down his
+shrivelled cheeks and wet his grey beard, which some of the inhuman
+soldiers plucked in scorn!  I could not bear it, I could not for my
+soul, and one morning, when the rest of the guard were out of the
+way, I found means to let him escape.  I was tried by a court-
+martial for negligence of my post, and ordered, in compassion of my
+age, and having got this wound in my arm and that in my leg in the
+service, only to suffer three hundred lashes and be turned out of
+the regiment; but my sentence was mitigated as to the lashes, and I
+had only two hundred.  When I had suffered these I was turned out of
+the camp, and had betwixt three and four hundred miles to travel
+before I could reach a sea-port, without guide to conduct me, or
+money to buy me provisions by the way.  I set out, however, resolved
+to walk as far as I could, and then to lay myself down and die.  But
+I had scarce gone a mile when I was met by the Indian whom I had
+delivered.  He pressed me in his arms, and kissed the marks of the
+lashes on my back a thousand times; he led me to a little hut, where
+some friend of his dwelt, and after I was recovered of my wounds
+conducted me so far on my journey himself, and sent another Indian
+to guide me through the rest.  When we parted he pulled out a purse
+with two hundred pieces of gold in it.  'Take this,' said he, 'my
+dear preserver, it is all I have been able to procure.'
+
+"I begged him not to bring himself to poverty for my sake, who
+should probably have no need of it long, but he insisted on my
+accepting it.  He embraced me.  'You are an Englishman,' said he,
+'but the Great Spirit has given you an Indian heart, may He bear up
+the weight of your old age, and blunt the arrow that brings it
+rest!'
+
+"We parted, and not long after I made shift to get my passage to
+England.  'Tis but about a week since I landed, and I am going to
+end my days in the arms of my son.  This sum may be of use to him
+and his children, 'tis all the value I put upon it.  I thank Heaven
+I never was covetous of wealth; I never had much, but was always so
+happy as to be content with my little."
+
+When Edwards had ended his relation, Harley stood a while looking at
+him in silence; at last he pressed him in his arms, and when he had
+given vent to the fulness of his heart by a shower of tears,
+"Edwards," said he, "let me hold thee to my bosom, let me imprint
+the virtue of thy sufferings on my soul.  Come, my honoured veteran
+let me endeavour to soften the last days of a life, worn out in the
+service of humanity; call me also thy son, and let me cherish thee
+as a father."'
+
+Edwards, from whom the recollection of his own suffering had scarced
+forced a tear, now blubbered like a boy; he could not speak his
+gratitude, but by some short exclamations of blessings upon Harley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV--HE MISSES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.--AN ADVENTURE
+CONSEQUENT UPON IT
+
+
+
+When they had arrived within a little way of the village they
+journeyed to, Harley stopped short, and looked steadfastly on the
+mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood on the road side.
+"Oh, heavens!" he cried, "what do I see:  silent, unroofed, and
+desolate!  Are all thy gay tenants gone? do I hear their hum no more
+Edwards, look there, look there? the scene of my infant joys, my
+earliest friendships, laid waste and ruinous!  That was the very
+school where I was boarded when you were at South-hill; 'tis but a
+twelve-month since I saw it standing, and its benches filled with
+cherubs:  that opposite side of the road was the green on which they
+sported; see it now ploughed up!  I would have given fifty times its
+value to have saved it from the sacrilege of that plough."
+
+"Dear sir," replied Edwards, "perhaps they have left it from choice,
+and may have got another spot as good."
+
+"They cannot," said Harley, "they cannot; I shall never see the
+sward covered with its daisies, nor pressed by the dance of the dear
+innocents:  I shall never see that stump decked with the garlands
+which their little hands had gathered.  These two long stones, which
+now lie at the foot of it, were once the supports of a hut I myself
+assisted to rear:  I have sat on the sods within it, when we had
+spread our banquet of apples before us, and been more blessed--Oh!
+Edwards, infinitely more blessed, than ever I shall be again."
+
+Just then a woman passed them on the road, and discovered some signs
+of wonder at the attitude of Harley, who stood, with his hands
+folded together, looking with a moistened eye on the fallen pillars
+of the hut.  He was too much entranced in thought to observe her at
+all, but Edwards, civilly accosting her, desired to know if that had
+not been the school-house, and how it came into the condition in
+which they now saw it.
+
+"Alack a day!" said she, "it was the school-house indeed; but to be
+sure, sir, the squire has pulled it down because it stood in the way
+of his prospects."
+
+"What! how! prospects! pulled down!" cried Harley.
+
+"Yes, to be sure, sir; and the green, where the children used to
+play, he has ploughed up, because, he said, they hurt his fence on
+the other side of it."
+
+"Curses on his narrow heart," cried Harley, "that could violate a
+right so sacred!  Heaven blast the wretch!
+
+
+"And from his derogate body never spring
+A babe to honour him!" -
+
+
+But I need not, Edwards, I need not" (recovering himself a little),
+"he is cursed enough already:  to him the noblest source of
+happiness is denied, and the cares of his sordid soul shall gnaw it,
+while thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on those mangled
+limbs that have saved thy son and his children!"
+
+"If you want anything with the school-mistress, sir," said the
+woman, "I can show you the way to her house."
+
+He followed her without knowing whither he went.
+
+They stopped at the door of a snug habitation, where sat an elderly
+woman with a boy and a girl before her, each of whom held a supper
+of bread and milk in their hands.
+
+"There, sir, is the school-mistress."
+
+"Madam," said Harley, "was not an old venerable man school-master
+here some time ago?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he was, poor man; the loss of his former school-house, I
+believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down,
+and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the
+meantime."
+
+"And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"
+
+"Ay, sir; they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish,
+and more promising children I never saw."
+
+"Orphans?" said Harley.
+
+"Yes, sir, of honest creditable parents as any in the parish, and it
+is a shame for some folks to forget their relations at a time when
+they have most need to remember them."
+
+"Madam," said Harley, "let us never forget that we are all
+relations."
+
+He kissed the children.
+
+"Their father, sir," continued she, "was a farmer here in the
+neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can
+help misfortunes:  what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are
+worse, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of
+broken hearts.  And a sweet couple they were, sir; there was not a
+properer man to look on in the county than John Edwards, and so
+indeed were all the Edwardses."
+
+"What Edwardses?" cried the old soldier hastily.
+
+"The Edwardses of South-hill, and a worthy family they were."
+
+"South-hill!" said he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the
+arms of the astonished Harley.  The school-mistress ran for some
+water--and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon
+recovered the unfortunate Edwards.  He stared wildly for some time,
+then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms,
+
+"Oh! my children, my children," he cried, "have I found you thus?
+My poor Jack, art thou gone?  I thought thou shouldst have carried
+thy father's grey hairs to the grave! and these little ones"--his
+tears choked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of the
+children.
+
+"My dear old man," said Harley, "Providence has sent you to relieve
+them; it will bless me if I can be the means of assisting you."
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir," answered the boy; "father, when he was a-dying,
+bade God bless us, and prayed that if grandfather lived he might
+send him to support us."
+
+"Where did they lay my boy?" said Edwards.
+
+"In the Old Churchyard," replied the woman, "hard by his mother."
+
+"I will show it you," answered the boy, "for I have wept over it
+many a time when first I came amongst strange folks."
+
+He took the old man's hand, Harley laid hold of his sister's, and
+they walked in silence to the churchyard.
+
+There was an old stone, with the corner broken off, and some
+letters, half-covered with moss, to denote the names of the dead:
+there was a cyphered R. E. plainer than the rest; it was the tomb
+they sought.
+
+"Here it is, grandfather," said the boy.
+
+Edwards gazed upon it without uttering a word:  the girl, who had
+only sighed before, now wept outright; her brother sobbed, but he
+stifled his sobbing.
+
+"I have told sister," said he, "that she should not take it so to
+heart; she can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig, we
+shall not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grandfather
+neither."
+
+The girl cried afresh; Harley kissed off her tears as they flowed,
+and wept between every kiss.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI--HE RETURNS HOME.--A DESCRIPTION OF HIS RETINUE
+
+
+
+It was with some difficulty that Harley prevailed on the old man to
+leave the spot where the remains of his son were laid.  At last,
+with the assistance of the school-mistress, he prevailed; and she
+accommodated Edwards and him with beds in her house, there being
+nothing like an inn nearer than the distance of some miles.
+
+In the morning Harley persuaded Edwards to come with the children to
+his house, which was distant but a short day's journey.  The boy
+walked in his grandfather's hand; and the name of Edwards procured
+him a neighbouring farmer's horse, on which a servant mounted, with
+the girl on a pillow before him.
+
+With this train Harley returned to the abode of his fathers:  and we
+cannot but think, that his enjoyment was as great as if he had
+arrived from the tour of Europe with a Swiss valet for his
+companion, and half a dozen snuff-boxes, with invisible hinges, in
+his pocket.  But we take our ideas from sounds which folly has
+invented; Fashion, Boa ton, and Vertu, are the names of certain
+idols, to which we sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul:  in
+this world of semblance, we are contented with personating
+happiness; to feel it is an art beyond us.
+
+It was otherwise with Harley; he ran upstairs to his aunt with the
+history of his fellow-travellers glowing on his lips.  His aunt was
+an economist; but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things,
+and withal was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him.
+She received old Edwards therefore with a look of more complacency
+than is perhaps natural to maiden ladies of three-score, and was
+remarkably attentive to his grandchildren:  she roasted apples with
+her own hands for their supper, and made up a little bed beside her
+own for the girl.  Edwards made some attempts towards an
+acknowledgment for these favours; but his young friend stopped them
+in their beginnings.
+
+"Whosoever receiveth any of these children," said his aunt; for her
+acquaintance with her Bible was habitual.
+
+Early next morning Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay:  he
+expected to have found him a-bed, but in this he was mistaken:  the
+old man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with
+the tears flowing down his cheeks.  At first he did not perceive
+Harley; when he did, he endeavoured to hide his grief, and crossing
+his eyes with his hand expressed his surprise at seeing him so early
+astir.
+
+"I was thinking of you," said Harley, "and your children:  I learned
+last night that a small farm of mine in the neighbourhood is now
+vacant:  if you will occupy it I shall gain a good neighbour and be
+able in some measure to repay the notice you took of me when a boy,
+and as the furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much
+trouble saved."
+
+Edwards's tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place
+he intended for him.
+
+The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its
+situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the
+beneficence of Harley, set about improving its neatness and
+convenience.  He staked out a piece of the green before for a
+garden, and Peter, who acted in Harley's family as valet, butler,
+and gardener, had orders to furnish him with parcels of the
+different seeds he chose to sow in it.  I have seen his master at
+work in this little spot with his coat off, and his dibble in his
+hand:  it was a scene of tranquil virtue to have stopped an angel on
+his errands of mercy!  Harley had contrived to lead a little
+bubbling brook through a green walk in the middle of the ground,
+upon which he had erected a mill in miniature for the diversion of
+Edwards's infant grandson, and made shift in its construction to
+introduce a pliant bit of wood that answered with its fairy clack to
+the murmuring of the rill that turned it.  I have seen him stand,
+listening to these mingled sounds, with his eye fixed on the boy,
+and the smile of conscious satisfaction on his cheek, while the old
+man, with a look half turned to Harley and half to heaven, breathed
+an ejaculation of gratitude and piety.
+
+Father of mercies!  I also would thank thee that not only hast thou
+assigned eternal rewards to virtue, but that, even in this bad
+world, the lines of our duty and our happiness are so frequently
+woven together.
+
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.--THE MAN OF FEELING TALKS OF WHAT HE DOES NOT
+UNDERSTAND.--AN INCIDENT
+
+
+
+* * * * "Edwards," said he, "I have a proper regard for the
+prosperity of my country:  every native of it appropriates to
+himself some share of the power, or the fame, which, as a nation, it
+acquires, but I cannot throw off the man so much as to rejoice at
+our conquests in India.  You tell me of immense territories subject
+to the English:  I cannot think of their possessions without being
+led to inquire by what right they possess them.  They came there as
+traders, bartering the commodities they brought for others which
+their purchasers could spare; and however great their profits were,
+they were then equitable.  But what title have the subjects of
+another kingdom to establish an empire in India? to give laws to a
+country where the inhabitants received them on the terms of friendly
+commerce?  You say they are happier under our regulations than the
+tyranny of their own petty princes.  I must doubt it, from the
+conduct of those by whom these regulations have been made.  They
+have drained the treasuries of Nabobs, who must fill them by
+oppressing the industry of their subjects.  Nor is this to be
+wondered at, when we consider the motive upon which those gentlemen
+do not deny their going to India.  The fame of conquest, barbarous
+as that motive is, is but a secondary consideration:  there are
+certain stations in wealth to which the warriors of the East aspire.
+It is there, indeed, where the wishes of their friends assign them
+eminence, where the question of their country is pointed at their
+return.  When shall I see a commander return from India in the pride
+of honourable poverty?  You describe the victories they have gained;
+they are sullied by the cause in which they fought:  you enumerate
+the spoils of those victories; they are covered with the blood of
+the vanquished.
+
+"Could you tell me of some conqueror giving peace and happiness to
+the conquered? did he accept the gifts of their princes to use them
+for the comfort of those whose fathers, sons, or husbands, fell in
+battle? did he use his power to gain security and freedom to the
+regions of oppression and slavery? did he endear the British name by
+examples of generosity, which the most barbarous or most depraved
+are rarely able to resist? did he return with the consciousness of
+duty discharged to his country, and humanity to his fellow-
+creatures? did he return with no lace on his coat, no slaves in his
+retinue, no chariot at his door, and no burgundy at his table?--
+these were laurels which princes might envy--which an honest man
+would not condemn!"
+
+"Your maxims, Mr. Harley, are certainly right," said Edwards.  "I am
+not capable of arguing with you; but I imagine there are great
+temptations in a great degree of riches, which it is no easy matter
+to resist:  those a poor man like me cannot describe, because he
+never knew them; and perhaps I have reason to bless God that I never
+did; for then, it is likely, I should have withstood them no better
+than my neighbours.  For you know, sir, that it is not the fashion
+now, as it was in former times, that I have read of in books, when
+your great generals died so poor, that they did not leave
+wherewithal to buy them a coffin; and people thought the better of
+their memories for it:  if they did so now-a-days, I question if any
+body, except yourself, and some few like you, would thank them."
+
+"I am sorry," replied Harley, "that there is so much truth in what
+you say; but however the general current of opinion may point, the
+feelings are not yet lost that applaud benevolence, and censure
+inhumanity.  Let us endeavour to strengthen them in ourselves; and
+we, who live sequestered from the noise of the multitude, have
+better opportunities of listening undisturbed to their voice."
+
+They now approached the little dwelling of Edwards.  A maid-servant,
+whom he had hired to assist him in the care of his grandchildren met
+them a little way from the house:  "There is a young lady within
+with the children," said she.  Edwards expressed his surprise at the
+visit:  it was however not the less true; and we mean to account for
+it.
+
+This young lady then was no other than Miss Walton.  She had heard
+the old man's history from Harley, as we have already related it.
+Curiosity, or some other motive, made her desirous to see his
+grandchildren; this she had an opportunity of gratifying soon, the
+children, in some of their walks, having strolled as far as her
+father's avenue.  She put several questions to both; she was
+delighted with the simplicity of their answers, and promised, that
+if they continued to be good children, and do as their grandfather
+bid them, she would soon see them again, and bring some present or
+other for their reward.  This promise she had performed now:  she
+came attended only by her maid, and brought with her a complete suit
+of green for the boy, and a chintz gown, a cap, and a suit of
+ribbons, for his sister.  She had time enough, with her maid's
+assistance, to equip them in their new habiliments before Harley and
+Edwards returned.  The boy heard his grandfather's voice, and, with
+that silent joy which his present finery inspired, ran to the door
+to meet him:  putting one hand in his, with the other pointed to his
+sister, "See," said he, "what Miss Walton has brought us!"--Edwards
+gazed on them.  Harley fixed his eyes on Miss Walton; her's were
+turned to the ground;--in Edwards's was a beamy moisture.--He folded
+his hands together--"I cannot speak, young lady," said he, "to thank
+you."  Neither could Harley.  There were a thousand sentiments; but
+they gushed so impetuously on his heart, that he could not utter a
+syllable. * * * *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL--THE MAN OF FEELING JEALOUS
+
+
+
+The desire of communicating knowledge or intelligence, is an
+argument with those who hold that man is naturally a social animal.
+It is indeed one of the earliest propensities we discover; but it
+may be doubted whether the pleasure (for pleasure there certainly
+is) arising from it be not often more selfish than social:  for we
+frequently observe the tidings of Ill communicated as eagerly as the
+annunciation of Good.  Is it that we delight in observing the
+effects of the stronger passions? for we are all philosophers in
+this respect; and it is perhaps amongst the spectators at Tyburn
+that the most genuine are to be found.
+
+Was it from this motive that Peter came one morning into his
+master's room with a meaning face of recital?  His master indeed did
+not at first observe it; for he was sitting with one shoe buckled,
+delineating portraits in the fire.  "I have brushed those clothes,
+sir, as you ordered me."--Harley nodded his head but Peter observed
+that his hat wanted brushing too:  his master nodded again.  At last
+Peter bethought him that the fire needed stirring; and taking up the
+poker, demolished the turban'd head of a Saracen, while his master
+was seeking out a body for it.  "The morning is main cold, sir,"
+said Peter.  "Is it?" said Harley.  "Yes, sir; I have been as far as
+Tom Dowson's to fetch some barberries he had picked for Mrs.
+Margery.  There was a rare junketting last night at Thomas's among
+Sir Harry Benson's servants; he lay at Squire Walton's, but he would
+not suffer his servants to trouble the family:  so, to be sure, they
+were all at Tom's, and had a fiddle, and a hot supper in the big
+room where the justices meet about the destroying of hares and
+partridges, and them things; and Tom's eyes looked so red and so
+bleared when I called him to get the barberries:- And I hear as how
+Sir Harry is going to be married to Miss Walton."--"How!  Miss
+Walton married!" said Harley.  "Why, it mayn't be true, sir, for all
+that; but Tom's wife told it me, and to be sure the servants told
+her, and their master told them, as I guess, sir; but it mayn't be
+true for all that, as I said before."--"Have done with your idle
+information," said Harley:- "Is my aunt come down into the parlour
+to breakfast?"--"Yes, sir."--"Tell her I'll be with her
+immediately."
+
+When Peter was gone, he stood with his eyes fixed on the ground, and
+the last words of his intelligence vibrating in his ears.  "Miss
+Walton married!" he sighed--and walked down stairs, with his shoe as
+it was, and the buckle in his hand.  His aunt, however, was pretty
+well accustomed to those appearances of absence; besides, that the
+natural gravity of her temper, which was commonly called into
+exertion by the care of her household concerns, was such as not
+easily to be discomposed by any circumstance of accidental
+impropriety.  She too had been informed of the intended match
+between Sir Harry Benson and Miss Walton.  "I have been thinking,"
+said she, "that they are distant relations:  for the great-
+grandfather of this Sir Harry Benson, who was knight of the shire in
+the reign of Charles the First, and one of the cavaliers of those
+times, was married to a daughter of the Walton family."  Harley
+answered drily, that it might be so; but that he never troubled
+himself about those matters.  "Indeed," said she, "you are to blame,
+nephew, for not knowing a little more of them:  before I was near
+your age I had sewed the pedigree of our family in a set of chair-
+bottoms, that were made a present of to my grandmother, who was a
+very notable woman, and had a proper regard for gentility, I'll
+assure you; but now-a-days it is money, not birth, that makes people
+respected; the more shame for the times."
+
+Harley was in no very good humour for entering into a discussion of
+this question; but he always entertained so much filial respect for
+his aunt, as to attend to her discourse.
+
+"We blame the pride of the rich," said he, "but are not we ashamed
+of our poverty?"
+
+"Why, one would not choose," replied his aunt, "to make a much worse
+figure than one's neighbours; but, as I was saying before, the times
+(as my friend, Mrs. Dorothy Walton, observes) are shamefully
+degenerated in this respect.  There was but t'other day at Mr.
+Walton's, that fat fellow's daughter, the London merchant, as he
+calls himself, though I have heard that he was little better than
+the keeper of a chandler's shop.  We were leaving the gentlemen to
+go to tea.  She had a hoop, forsooth, as large and as stiff--and it
+showed a pair of bandy legs, as thick as two--I was nearer the door
+by an apron's length, and the pert hussy brushed by me, as who
+should say, Make way for your betters, and with one of her London
+bobs--but Mrs. Dorothy did not let her pass with it; for all the
+time of drinking tea, she spoke of the precedency of family, and the
+disparity there is between people who are come of something and your
+mushroom gentry who wear their coats of arms in their purses."
+
+Her indignation was interrupted by the arrival of her maid with a
+damask table-cloth, and a set of napkins, from the loom, which had
+been spun by her mistress's own hand.  There was the family crest in
+each corner, and in the middle a view of the battle of Worcester,
+where one of her ancestors had been a captain in the king's forces;
+and with a sort of poetical licence in perspective, there was seen
+the Royal Oak, with more wig than leaves upon it.
+
+On all this the good lady was very copious, and took up the
+remaining intervals of filling tea, to describe its excellencies to
+Harley; adding, that she intended this as a present for his wife,
+when he should get one.  He sighed and looked foolish, and
+commending the serenity of the day, walked out into the garden.
+
+He sat down on a little seat which commanded an extensive prospect
+round the house.  He leaned on his hand, and scored the ground with
+his stick:  'Miss Walton married!' said he; but what is that to me?
+May she be happy! her virtues deserve it; to me her marriage is
+otherwise indifferent:  I had romantic dreams? they are fled?--it is
+perfectly indifferent."
+
+Just at that moment he saw a servant with a knot of ribbons in his
+hat go into the house.  His cheeks grew flushed at the sight!  He
+kept his eye fixed for some time on the door by which he had
+entered, then starting to his feet, hastily followed him.
+
+When he approached the door of the kitchen where he supposed the man
+had entered, his heart throbbed so violently, that when he would
+have called Peter, his voice failed in the attempt.  He stood a
+moment listening in this breathless state of palpitation:  Peter
+came out by chance.  "Did your honour want any thing?"--"Where is
+the servant that came just now from Mr. Walton's?"
+
+"From Mr. Walton's, sir! there is none of his servants here that I
+know of."--"Nor of Sir Harry Benson's?"--He did not wait for an
+answer; but having by this time observed the hat with its parti-
+coloured ornament hanging on a peg near the door, he pressed
+forwards into the kitchen, and addressing himself to a stranger whom
+he saw there, asked him, with no small tremor in his voice, "If he
+had any commands for him?"  The man looked silly, and said, "That he
+had nothing to trouble his honour with."--"Are not you a servant of
+Sir Harry Benson's?"--"No, sir."--"You'll pardon me, young man; I
+judged by the favour in your hat."--"Sir, I'm his majesty's servant,
+God bless him! and these favours we always wear when we are
+recruiting."--"Recruiting!" his eyes glistened at the word:  he
+seized the soldier's hand, and shaking it violently, ordered Peter
+to fetch a bottle of his aunt's best dram.  The bottle was brought:
+"You shall drink the king's health," said Harley, "in a bumper."--
+"The king and your honour."--"Nay, you shall drink the king's health
+by itself; you may drink mine in another."  Peter looked in his
+master's face, and filled with some little reluctance.  "Now to your
+mistress," said Harley; "every soldier has a mistress."  The man
+excused himself--"To your mistress! you cannot refuse it."  'Twas
+Mrs. Margery's best dram!  Peter stood with the bottle a little
+inclined, but not so as to discharge a drop of its contents:  "Fill
+it, Peter," said his master, "fill it to the brim."  Peter filled
+it; and the soldier having named Suky Simpson, dispatched it in a
+twinkling.  "Thou art an honest fellow," said Harley, "and I love
+thee;" and shaking his hand again, desired Peter to make him his
+guest at dinner, and walked up into his room with a pace much
+quicker and more springy than usual.
+
+This agreeable disappointment, however, he was not long suffered to
+enjoy.  The curate happened that day to dine with him:  his visits,
+indeed, were more properly to the aunt than the nephew; and many of
+the intelligent ladies in the parish, who, like some very great
+philosophers, have the happy knack at accounting for everything,
+gave out that there was a particular attachment between them, which
+wanted only to be matured by some more years of courtship to end in
+the tenderest connection.  In this conclusion, indeed, supposing the
+premises to have been true, they were somewhat justified by the
+known opinion of the lady, who frequently declared herself a friend
+to the ceremonial of former times, when a lover might have sighed
+seven years at his mistress's feet before he was allowed the liberty
+of kissing her hand.  'Tis true Mrs. Margery was now about her grand
+climacteric; no matter:  that is just the age when we expect to grow
+younger.  But I verily believe there was nothing in the report; the
+curate's connection was only that of a genealogist; for in that
+character he was no way inferior to Mrs. Margery herself.  He dealt
+also in the present times; for he was a politician and a news-
+monger.
+
+He had hardly said grace after dinner, when he told Mrs. Margery
+that she might soon expect a pair of white gloves, as Sir Harry
+Benson, he was very well informed, was just going to be married to
+Miss Walton.  Harley spilt the wine he was carrying to his mouth:
+he had time, however, to recollect himself before the curate had
+finished the different particulars of his intelligence, and summing
+up all the heroism he was master of, filled a bumper, and drank to
+Miss Walton.  "With all my heart," said the curate, "the bride that
+is to be."  Harley would have said bride too; but the word bride
+stuck in his throat.  His confusion, indeed, was manifest; but the
+curate began to enter on some point of descent with Mrs. Margery,
+and Harley had very soon after an opportunity of leaving them, while
+they were deeply engaged in a question, whether the name of some
+great man in the time of Henry the Seventh was Richard or Humphrey.
+
+He did not see his aunt again till supper; the time between he spent
+in walking, like some troubled ghost, round the place where his
+treasure lay.  He went as far as a little gate, that led into a
+copse near Mr. Walton's house, to which that gentleman had been so
+obliging as to let him have a key.  He had just begun to open it
+when he saw, on a terrace below, Miss Walton walking with a
+gentleman in a riding-dress, whom he immediately guessed to be Sir
+Harry Benson.  He stopped of a sudden; his hand shook so much that
+he could hardly turn the key; he opened the gate, however, and
+advanced a few paces.  The lady's lap-dog pricked up its ears, and
+barked; he stopped again -
+
+
+- "The little dogs and all,
+Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me!"
+
+
+His resolution failed; he slunk back, and, locking the gate as
+softly as he could, stood on tiptoe looking over the wall till they
+were gone.  At that instant a shepherd blew his horn:  the romantic
+melancholy of the sound quite overcame him!--it was the very note
+that wanted to be touched--he sighed! he dropped a tear!--and
+returned.
+
+At supper his aunt observed that he was graver than usual; but she
+did not suspect the cause:  indeed, it may seem odd that she was the
+only person in the family who had no suspicion of his attachment to
+Miss Walton.  It was frequently matter of discourse amongst the
+servants:  perhaps her maiden coldness--but for those things we need
+not account.
+
+In a day or two he was so much master of himself as to be able to
+rhyme upon the subject.  The following pastoral he left, some time
+after, on the handle of a tea-kettle, at a neighbouring house where
+we were visiting; and as I filled the tea-pot after him, I happened
+to put it in my pocket by a similar act of forgetfulness.  It is
+such as might be expected from a man who makes verses for amusement.
+I am pleased with somewhat of good nature that runs through it,
+because I have commonly observed the writers of those complaints to
+bestow epithets on their lost mistresses rather too harsh for the
+mere liberty of choice, which led them to prefer another to the poet
+himself:  I do not doubt the vehemence of their passion; but, alas!
+the sensations of love are something more than the returns of
+gratitude.
+
+
+LAVINIA.
+A PASTORAL.
+
+Why steals from my bosom the sigh?
+   Why fixed is my gaze on the ground?
+Come, give me my pipe, and I'll try
+   To banish my cares with the sound.
+
+Erewhile were its notes of accord
+   With the smile of the flow'r-footed Muse;
+Ah! why by its master implored
+   Shou'd it now the gay carrol refuse?
+
+'Twas taught by LAVINIA'S sweet smile,
+   In the mirth-loving chorus to join:
+Ah, me! how unweeting the while!
+   LAVINIA--can never be mine!
+
+Another, more happy, the maid
+   By fortune is destin'd to bless -
+'Tho' the hope has forsook that betray'd,
+   Yet why should I love her the less?
+
+Her beauties are bright as the morn,
+   With rapture I counted them o'er;
+Such virtues these beauties adorn,
+   I knew her, and prais'd them no more.
+
+I term'd her no goddess of love,
+   I call'd not her beauty divine:
+These far other passions may prove,
+   But they could not be figures of mine.
+
+It ne'er was apparel'd with art,
+   On words it could never rely;
+It reign'd in the throb of my heart,
+   It gleam'd in the glance of my eye.
+
+Oh fool! in the circle to shine
+   That Fashion's gay daughters approve,
+You must speak as the fashions incline;
+   Alas! are there fashions in love?
+
+Yet sure they are simple who prize
+   The tongue that is smooth to deceive;
+Yet sure she had sense to despise,
+   The tinsel that folly may weave.
+
+When I talk'd, I have seen her recline,
+   With an aspect so pensively sweet, -
+Tho' I spoke what the shepherds opine,
+   A fop were ashamed to repeat.
+
+She is soft as the dew-drops that fall
+   From the lip of the sweet-scented pea;
+Perhaps when she smil'd upon all,
+   I have thought that she smil'd upon me.
+
+But why of her charms should I tell?
+   Ah me! whom her charms have undone
+Yet I love the reflection too well,
+   The painful reflection to shun.
+
+Ye souls of more delicate kind,
+   Who feast not on pleasure alone,
+Who wear the soft sense of the mind,
+   To the sons of the world still unknown.
+
+Ye know, tho' I cannot express,
+   Why I foolishly doat on my pain;
+Nor will ye believe it the less,
+   That I have not the skill to complain.
+
+I lean on my hand with a sigh,
+   My friends the soft sadness condemn;
+Yet, methinks, tho' I cannot tell why,
+   I should hate to be merry like them.
+
+When I walk'd in the pride of the dawn,
+   Methought all the region look'd bright:
+Has sweetness forsaken the lawn?
+   For, methinks, I grow sad at the sight.
+
+When I stood by the stream, I have thought
+   There was mirth in the gurgling soft sound;
+But now 'tis a sorrowful note,
+   And the banks are all gloomy around!
+
+I have laugh'd at the jest of a friend;
+   Now they laugh, and I know not the cause,
+Tho' I seem with my looks to attend,
+   How silly!  I ask what it was.
+
+They sing the sweet song of the May,
+   They sing it with mirth and with glee;
+Sure I once thought the sonnet was gay,
+   But now 'tis all sadness to me.
+
+Oh! give me the dubious light
+   That gleams thro' the quivering shade;
+Oh! give me the horrors of night,
+   By gloom and by silence array'd!
+
+Let me walk where the soft-rising wave,
+   Has pictur'd the moon on its breast;
+Let me walk where the new cover'd grave
+   Allows the pale lover to rest!
+
+When shall I in its peaceable womb,
+   Be laid with my sorrows asleep?
+Should LAVINIA but chance on my tomb -
+   I could die if I thought she would weep.
+
+Perhaps, if the souls of the just
+   Revisit these mansions of care,
+It may be my favourite trust
+   To watch o'er the fate of the fair.
+
+Perhaps the soft thought of her breast,
+   With rapture more favour'd to warm;
+Perhaps, if with sorrow oppress'd,
+   Her sorrow with patience to arm.
+
+Then, then, in the tenderest part
+   May I whisper, "Poor COLIN was true,"
+And mark if a heave of her heart
+   The thought of her COLIN pursue.
+
+
+
+THE PUPIL--A FRAGMENT
+
+
+
+* * * "But as to the higher part of education, Mr. Harley, the
+culture of the mind--let the feelings be awakened, let the heart be
+brought forth to its object, placed in the light in which nature
+would have it stand, and its decisions will ever be just.  The world
+
+
+Will smile, and smile, and be a villain;
+
+
+and the youth, who does not suspect its deceit, will be content to
+smile with it.  Men will put on the most forbidding aspect in
+nature, and tell him of the beauty of virtue.
+
+"I have not, under these grey hairs, forgotten that I was once a
+young man, warm in the pursuit of pleasure, but meaning to be honest
+as well as happy.  I had ideas of virtue, of honour, of benevolence,
+which I had never been at the pains to define; but I felt my bosom
+heave at the thoughts of them, and I made the most delightful
+soliloquies.  It is impossible, said I, that there can be half so
+many rogues as are imagined.
+
+"I travelled, because it is the fashion for young men of my fortune
+to travel.  I had a travelling tutor, which is the fashion too; but
+my tutor was a gentleman, which it is not always the fashion for
+tutors to be.  His gentility, indeed, was all he had from his
+father, whose prodigality had not left him a shilling to support it.
+
+"'I have a favour to ask of you, my dear Mountford,' said my father,
+'which I will not be refused.  You have travelled as became a man;
+neither France nor Italy have made anything of Mountford, which
+Mountford, before he left England, would have been ashamed of.  My
+son Edward goes abroad, would you take him under your protection?'
+
+"He blushed; my father's face was scarlet.  He pressed his hand to
+his bosom, as if he had said, my heart does not mean to offend you.
+Mountford sighed twice.
+
+"'I am a proud fool,' said he, 'and you will pardon it.  There! (he
+sighed again) I can hear of dependance, since it is dependance on my
+Sedley.'
+
+"'Dependance!' answered my father; 'there can be no such word
+between us.  What is there in 9,000 pounds a year that should make
+me unworthy of Mountford's friendship?'
+
+"They embraced; and soon after I set out on my travels, with
+Mountford for my guardian.
+
+"We were at Milan, where my father happened to have an Italian
+friend, to whom he had been of some service in England.  The count,
+for he was of quality, was solicitous to return the obligation by a
+particular attention to his son.  We lived in his palace, visited
+with his family, were caressed by his friends, and I began to be so
+well pleased with my entertainment, that I thought of England as of
+some foreign country.
+
+"The count had a son not much older than myself.  At that age a
+friend is an easy acquisition; we were friends the first night of
+our acquaintance.
+
+"He introduced me into the company of a set of young gentlemen,
+whose fortunes gave them the command of pleasure, and whose
+inclinations incited them to the purchase.  After having spent some
+joyous evenings in their society, it became a sort of habit which I
+could not miss without uneasiness, and our meetings, which before
+were frequent, were now stated and regular.
+
+"Sometimes, in the pauses of our mirth, gaming was introduced as an
+amusement.  It was an art in which I was a novice.  I received
+instruction, as other novices do, by losing pretty largely to my
+teachers.  Nor was this the only evil which Mountford foresaw would
+arise from the connection I had formed; but a lecture of sour
+injunctions was not his method of reclaiming.  He sometimes asked me
+questions about the company, but they were such as the curiosity of
+any indifferent man might have prompted.  I told him of their wit,
+their eloquence, their warmth of friendship, and their sensibility
+of heart.  'And their honour,' said I, laying my hand on my breast,
+'is unquestionable.'  Mountford seemed to rejoice at my good
+fortune, and begged that I would introduce him to their
+acquaintance.  At the next meeting I introduced him accordingly.
+
+"The conversation was as animated as usual.  They displayed all that
+sprightliness and good-humour which my praises had led Mountford to
+expect; subjects, too, of sentiment occurred, and their speeches,
+particularly those of our friend the son of Count Respino, glowed
+with the warmth of honour, and softened into the tenderness of
+feeling.  Mountford was charmed with his companions.  When we
+parted, he made the highest eulogiums upon them.  'When shall we see
+them again?' said he.  I was delighted with the demand, and promised
+to reconduct him on the morrow.
+
+"In going to their place of rendezvous, he took me a little out of
+the road, to see, as he told me, the performances of a young
+statuary.  When we were near the house in which Mountford said he
+lived, a boy of about seven years old crossed us in the street.  At
+sight of Mountford he stopped, and grasping his hand,
+
+"'My dearest sir,' said he, 'my father is likely to do well.  He
+will live to pray for you, and to bless you.  Yes, he will bless
+you, though you are an Englishman, and some other hard word that the
+monk talked of this morning, which I have forgot, but it meant that
+you should not go to heaven; but he shall go to heaven, said I, for
+he has saved my father.  Come and see him, sir, that we may be
+happy.'
+
+"'My dear, I am engaged at present with this gentleman.'
+
+"'But he shall come along with you; he is an Englishman, too, I
+fancy.  He shall come and learn how an Englishman may go to heaven.'
+
+"Mountford smiled, and we followed the boy together.
+
+"After crossing the next street, we arrived at the gate of a prison.
+I seemed surprised at the sight; our little conductor observed it.
+
+"'Are you afraid, sir?' said he.  'I was afraid once too, but my
+father and mother are here, and I am never afraid when I am with
+them.'
+
+"He took my hand, and led me through a dark passage that fronted the
+gate.  When we came to a little door at the end, he tapped.  A boy,
+still younger than himself, opened it to receive us.  Mountford
+entered with a look in which was pictured the benign assurance of a
+superior being.  I followed in silence and amazement.
+
+"On something like a bed, lay a man, with a face seemingly emaciated
+with sickness, and a look of patient dejection.  A bundle of dirty
+shreds served him for a pillow, but he had a better support--the arm
+of a female who kneeled beside him, beautiful as an angel, but with
+a fading languor in her countenance, the still life of melancholy,
+that seemed to borrow its shade from the object on which she gazed.
+There was a tear in her eye--the sick man kissed it off in its bud,
+smiling through the dimness of his own--when she saw Mountford, she
+crawled forward on the ground, and clasped his knees.  He raised her
+from the floor; she threw her arms round his neck, and sobbed out a
+speech of thankfulness, eloquent beyond the power of language.
+
+"'Compose yourself, my love,' said the man on the bed; 'but he,
+whose goodness has caused that emotion, will pardon its effects.'
+
+"'How is this, Mountford?' said I; 'what do I see?  What must I do?'
+
+"'You see,' replied the stranger, 'a wretch, sunk in poverty,
+starving in prison, stretched on a sick bed.  But that is little.
+There are his wife and children wanting the bread which he has not
+to give them!  Yet you cannot easily imagine the conscious serenity
+of his mind.  In the gripe of affliction, his heart swells with the
+pride of virtue; it can even look down with pity on the man whose
+cruelty has wrung it almost to bursting.  You are, I fancy, a friend
+of Mr. Mountford's.  Come nearer, and I'll tell you, for, short as
+my story is, I can hardly command breath enough for a recital.  The
+son of Count Respino (I started, as if I had trod on a viper) has
+long had a criminal passion for my wife.  This her prudence had
+concealed from me; but he had lately the boldness to declare it to
+myself.  He promised me affluence in exchange for honour, and
+threatened misery as its attendant if I kept it.  I treated him with
+the contempt he deserved; the consequence was, that he hired a
+couple of bravoes (for I am persuaded they acted under his
+direction), who attempted to assassinate me in the street; but I
+made such a defence as obliged them to fly, after having given me
+two or three stabs, none of which, however, were mortal.  But his
+revenge was not thus to be disappointed.  In the little dealings of
+my trade I had contracted some debts, of which he had made himself
+master for my ruin.  I was confined here at his suit, when not yet
+recovered from the wounds I had received; the dear woman, and these
+two boys, followed me, that we might starve together; but Providence
+interposed, and sent Mr. Mountford to our support.  He has relieved
+my family from the gnawings of hunger, and rescued me from death, to
+which a fever, consequent on my wounds and increased by the want of
+every necessary, had almost reduced me.'
+
+"'Inhuman villain!' I exclaimed, lifting up my eyes to heaven.
+
+"'Inhuman indeed!' said the lovely woman who stood at my side.
+'Alas! sir, what had we done to offend him? what had these little
+ones done, that they should perish in the toils of his vengeance?'
+
+"I reached a pen which stood in the inkstand dish at the bed-side.
+
+"'May I ask what is the amount of the sum for which you are
+imprisoned?'
+
+"'I was able,' he replied, 'to pay all but five hundred crowns.'
+
+"I wrote a draft on the banker with whom I had a credit from my
+father for 2,500, and presenting it to the stranger's wife,
+
+"'You will receive, madam, on presenting this note, a sum more than
+sufficient for your husband's discharge; the remainder I leave for
+his industry to improve.'
+
+"I would have left the room.  Each of them laid hold of one of my
+hands, the children clung to my coat.  Oh! Mr. Harley, methinks I
+feel their gentle violence at this moment; it beats here with
+delight inexpressible.
+
+"'Stay, sir,' said he, 'I do not mean attempting to thank you' (he
+took a pocket-book from under his pillow), 'let me but know what
+name I shall place here next to Mr. Mountford!'
+
+"'Sedley.'
+
+"He writ it down.
+
+"'An Englishman too, I presume.'
+
+"'He shall go to heaven, notwithstanding;' said the boy who had been
+our guide.
+
+"It began to be too much for me.  I squeezed his hand that was
+clasped in mine, his wife's I pressed to my lips, and burst from the
+place, to give vent to the feelings that laboured within me.
+
+"'Oh, Mountford!' said I, when he had overtaken me at the door.
+
+"'It is time,' replied he, 'that we should think of our appointment;
+young Respino and his friends are waiting us.'
+
+"'Damn him, damn him!' said I.  'Let us leave Milan instantly; but
+soft--I will be calm; Mountford, your pencil.'  I wrote on a slip of
+paper,
+
+
+"'To Signor RESPINO.
+
+"'When you receive this, I am at a distance from Milan.  Accept of
+my thanks for the civilities I have received from you and your
+family.  As to the friendship with which you were pleased to honour
+me, the prison, which I have just left, has exhibited a scene to
+cancel it for ever.  You may possibly be merry with your companions
+at my weakness, as I suppose you will term it.  I give you leave for
+derision.  You may affect a triumph, I shall feel it.
+
+"EDWARD SEDLEY."
+
+
+"'You may send this if you will,' said Mountford, coolly, 'but still
+Respino is a MAN OF HONOUR; the world will continue to call him so.'
+
+"'It is probable,' I answered, 'they may; I envy not the
+appellation.  If this is the world's honour, if these men are the
+guides of its manners--'
+
+"'Tut!' said Mountford, 'do you eat macaroni--'"
+
+* * *
+
+[At this place had the greatest depredations of the curate begun.
+There were so very few connected passages of the subsequent chapters
+remaining, that even the partiality of an editor could not offer
+them to the public.  I discovered, from some scattered sentences,
+that they were of much the same tenor with the preceding; recitals
+of little adventures, in which the dispositions of a man, sensible
+to judge, and still more warm to feel, had room to unfold
+themselves.  Some instruction, and some example, I make no doubt
+they contained; but it is likely that many of those, whom chance has
+led to a perusal of what I have already presented, may have read it
+with little pleasure, and will feel no disappointment from the want
+of those parts which I have been unable to procure.  To such as may
+have expected the intricacies of a novel, a few incidents in a life
+undistinguished, except by some features of the heart, cannot have
+afforded much entertainment.
+
+Harley's own story, from the mutilated passages I have mentioned, as
+well as from some inquiries I was at the trouble of making in the
+country, I found to have been simple to excess.  His mistress, I
+could perceive, was not married to Sir Harry Benson; but it would
+seem, by one of the following chapters, which is still entire, that
+Harley had not profited on the occasion by making any declaration of
+his own passion, after those of the other had been unsuccessful.
+The state of his health, for some part of this period, appears to
+have been such as to forbid any thoughts of that kind:  he had been
+seized with a very dangerous fever, caught by attending old Edwards
+in one of an infectious kind.  From this he had recovered but
+imperfectly, and though he had no formed complaint, his health was
+manifestly on the decline.
+
+It appears that the sagacity of some friend had at length pointed
+out to his aunt a cause from which this might be supposed to
+proceed, to wit, his hopeless love for Miss Walton; for, according
+to the conceptions of the world, the love of a man of Harley's
+fortune for the heiress of 4,000 pounds a year is indeed desperate.
+Whether it was so in this case may be gathered from the next
+chapter, which, with the two subsequent, concluding the performance,
+have escaped those accidents that proved fatal to the rest.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV--HE SEES MISS WALTON, AND IS HAPPY
+
+
+
+Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune
+had yet left me; I could not therefore but be sensibly concerned for
+his present indisposition; there seldom passed a day on which I did
+not make inquiry about him.
+
+The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before,
+that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some
+time past.  I called next morning to be confirmed in a piece of
+intelligence so welcome to me.
+
+When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch,
+leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the attitude of
+thoughtful inspiration.  His look had always an open benignity,
+which commanded esteem; there was now something more--a gentle
+triumph in it.
+
+He rose, and met me with his usual kindness.  When I gave him the
+good accounts I had had from his physician, "I am foolish enough,"
+said he, "to rely but little, in this instance, upon physic:  my
+presentiment may be false; but I think I feel myself approaching to
+my end, by steps so easy, that they woo me to approach it.
+
+"There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time, when
+the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties.  This world,
+my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted.  I was
+not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the dissipation of the
+gay; a thousand things occurred, where I blushed for the impropriety
+of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me
+I should have blushed to have done otherwise.--It was a scene of
+dissimulation, of restraint, of disappointment.  I leave it to enter
+on that state which I have learned to believe is replete with the
+genuine happiness attendant upon virtue.  I look back on the tenor
+of my life, with the consciousness of few great offences to account
+for.  There are blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree
+the picture.  But I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and
+rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour.  My mind
+expands at the thought I shall enter into the society of the
+blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children."  He had
+by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had
+just fallen upon it.--His eye began to moisten too--we sat for some
+time silent.--At last, with an attempt to a look of more composure,
+"There are some remembrances," said Harley, "which rise involuntary
+on my heart, and make me almost wish to live.  I have been blessed
+with a few friends, who redeem my opinion of mankind.  I recollect,
+with the tenderest emotion, the scenes of pleasure I have passed
+among them; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be
+separated.  There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to
+be suffered by the world.--The world is in general selfish,
+interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or
+melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own.  I cannot
+think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is any
+thing of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist;-
+-they are called,--perhaps they are--weaknesses here;--but there may
+be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve
+the name of virtues."  He sighed as he spoke these last words.  He
+had scarcely finished them, when the door opened, and his aunt
+appeared, leading in Miss Walton.  "My dear," said she, "here is
+Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you
+herself."  I could observe a transient glow upon his face.  He rose
+from his seat--"If to know Miss Walton's goodness," said he, "be a
+title to deserve it, I have some claim."  She begged him to resume
+his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him.  I took my
+leave.  Mrs. Margery accompanied me to the door.  He was left with
+Miss Walton alone.  She inquired anxiously about his health.  "I
+believe," said he, "from the accounts which my physicians
+unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery."-
+-She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately,
+endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were
+groundless.  "I know," said he, "that it is usual with persons at my
+time of life to have these hopes, which your kindness suggests; but
+I would not wish to be deceived.  To meet death as becomes a man, is
+a privilege bestowed on few.--I would endeavour to make it mine;--
+nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now: -
+-It is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach."
+"Those sentiments," answered Miss Walton, "are just; but your good
+sense, Mr. Harley, will own, that life has its proper value.--As the
+province of virtue, life is ennobled; as such, it is to be desired.-
+-To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards
+enough even here to fix its attachment."
+
+The subject began to overpower her.--Harley lifted his eyes from the
+ground--"There are," said he, in a very low voice, "there are
+attachments, Miss Walton"--His glance met hers.--They both betrayed
+a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn.--He paused some
+moments--"I am such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also
+excuse it--It is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet.  I feel
+something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart
+swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a
+sense of your perfections"--He paused again--"Let it not offend you,
+to know their power over one so unworthy--It will, I believe, soon
+cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the
+latest.--To love Miss Walton could not be a crime;--if to declare it
+is one--the expiation will be made."--Her tears were now flowing
+without control.--"Let me intreat you," said she, "to have better
+hopes--Let not life be so indifferent to you; if my wishes can put
+any value on it--I will not pretend to misunderstand you--I know
+your worth--I have known it long--I have esteemed it--What would you
+have me say?--I have loved it as it deserved."--He seized her hand--
+a languid colour reddened his cheek--a smile brightened faintly in
+his eye.  As he gazed on her, it grew dim, it fixed, it closed--He
+sighed and fell back on his seat--Miss Walton screamed at the sight-
+-His aunt and the servants rushed into the room--They found them
+lying motionless together.--His physician happened to call at that
+instant.  Every art was tried to recover them--With Miss Walton they
+succeeded--But Harley was gone for ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI--THE EMOTIONS OF THE HEART
+
+
+
+I entered the room where his body lay; I approached it with
+reverence, not fear:  I looked; the recollection of the past crowded
+upon me.  I saw that form which, but a little before, was animated
+with a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or
+feeling before me.  'Tis a connection we cannot easily forget:- I
+took his hand in mine; I repeated his name involuntary;--I felt a
+pulse in every vein at the sound.  I looked earnestly in his face;
+his eye was closed, his lip pale and motionless.  There is an
+enthusiasm in sorrow that forgets impossibility; I wondered that it
+was so.  The sight drew a prayer from my heart:  it was the voice of
+frailty and of man! the confusion of my mind began to subside into
+thought; I had time to meet!
+
+I turned with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old
+Edwards standing behind me.  I looked him full in the face; but his
+eye was fixed on another object:  he pressed between me and the bed,
+and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor.  I
+spoke to him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said,
+and remained in the same attitude as before.  He stood some minutes
+in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door.  He paused
+as he went;--he returned a second time:  I could observe his lips
+move as he looked:  but the voice they would have uttered was lost.
+He attempted going again; and a third time he returned as before.--I
+saw him wipe his cheek:  then covering his face with his hands, his
+breast heaving with the most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the
+room.
+
+
+
+THE CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot
+near the grave of his mother.  This is a weakness; but it is
+universally incident to humanity:  'tis at least a memorial for
+those who survive:  for some indeed a slender memorial will serve;--
+and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build
+their structures, were it but on the paring of a nail.
+
+He was buried in the place he had desired.  It was shaded by an old
+tree, the only one in the church-yard, in which was a cavity worn by
+time.  I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs.  The last
+time we passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree:
+there was a branch of it that bent towards us waving in the wind; he
+waved his hand as if he mimicked its motion.  There was something
+predictive in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it; but
+there are times and places when I am a child at those things.
+
+I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree.  It is
+worth a thousand homilies; every noble feeling rises within me!
+every beat of my heart awakens a virtue!--but it will make you hate
+the world--No:  there is such an air of gentleness around, that I
+can hate nothing; but, as to the world--I pity the men of it.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{16}  The reader will remember that the Editor is accountable only
+for scattered chapters and fragments of chapters; the curate must
+answer for the rest.  The number at the top, when the chapter was
+entire, he has given as it originally stood, with the title which
+its author had affixed to it.
+
+{61}  Though the Curate could not remember having shown this chapter
+to anybody, I strongly suspect that these political observations are
+the work of a later pen than the rest of this performance.  There
+seems to have been, by some accident, a gap in the manuscript, from
+the words, "Expectation at a jointure," to these, "In short, man is
+an animal," where the present blank ends; and some other person (for
+the hand is different, and the ink whiter) has filled part of it
+with sentiments of his own.  Whoever he was, he seems to have caught
+some portion of the spirit of the man he personates.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MAN OF FEELING ***
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