uthful
visionary. But the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and the home-bred
young squires whom it afforded were not of a class fit to form Edward's
usual companions, far less to excite him to emulation in the practice of
those pastimes which composed the serious business of their lives.

There were a few other youths of better education and a more liberal
character, but from their society also our hero was in some degree
excluded. Sir Everard had, upon the death of Queen Anne, resigned his
seat in Parliament, and, as his age increased and the number of his
contemporaries diminished, had gradually withdrawn himself from society;
so that when, upon any particular occasion, Edward mingled with
accomplished and well-educated young men of his own rank and
expectations, he felt an inferiority in their company, not so much from
deficiency of information, as from the want of the skill to command and
to arrange that which he possessed. A deep and increasing sensibility
added to this dislike of society. The idea of having committed the
slightest solecism in politeness, whether real or imaginary, was agony to
him; for perhaps even guilt itself does not impose upon some minds so
keen a sense of shame and remorse, as a modest, sensitive, and
inexperienced youth feels from the consciousness of having neglected
etiquette or excited ridicule. Where we are not at ease, we cannot be
happy; and therefore it is not surprising that Edward Waverley supposed
that he disliked and was unfitted for society, merely because he had not
yet acquired the habit of living in it with ease and comfort, and of
reciprocally giving and receiving pleasure.

The hours he spent with his uncle and aunt were exhausted in listening to
the oft-repeated tale of narrative old age. Yet even there his
imagination, the predominant faculty of his mind, was frequently excited.
Family tradition and genealogical history, upon which much of Sir
Everard's discourse turned, is the very reverse of amber, which, itself a
valuable substance, usually includes flies, straws, and other trifles;
whereas these studies, being themselves very insignificant and trifling,
do nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is rare and
valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious and minute facts
which could have been preserved and conveyed through no other medium. If,
therefore, Edward Waverley yawned at times over the dry deduction of his
line of ancestors, with the