ebly in
the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament,
and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of
everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and
streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.

"His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four
stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and
doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the
four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true
philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly
settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had
lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know
whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had
watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his
pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of
those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed
his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding
atmosphere.

"In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat
in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the
Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and
curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of
gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long
Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been
presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty
with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would
he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his
right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours
together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black
frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has
even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length
and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his
eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed
by external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of
his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his
admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his
contending doubts and opinions....

"I have be