taking
a route so little travelled by my countrymen, and seemed much amused by
my confession that the matter was purely accidental, and that frequently
I left the destination of my ramble to the halting-place of the
diligence. As English eccentricity can, in a foreigner's estimation,
carry any amount of absurdity, he did not set me down for a
madman--which, had I been. French or Italian, he most certainly would
have done--and only smiled slightly at my efforts to defend a procedure
in his eyes so ludicrous.

'You confess,' said I, at last, somewhat nettled by the indifference
with which he heard my most sapient arguments--' you confess on what
mere casualties every event of life turns, what straws decide the whole
destiny of a man, and what mere trivial circumstances influence the
fate of whole nations, and how in our wisest and most matured plans some
unexpected contingency is ever arising to disconcert and disarrange us;
why, then, not go a step farther--leave more to fate, and reserve all
our efforts to behave well and sensibly, wherever we may be placed, in
whatever situations thrown? As we shall then have fewer disappointments,
we shall also enjoy a more equable frame of mind, to combat with the
world's chances.'

'True, if a man were to lead a life of idleness, such a wayward course
might possibly suffice him as well as any other; but, bethink you, it
is not thus men have wrought great deeds, and won high names for
themselves. It is not by fickleness and caprice, by indolent yielding to
the accident of the hour, that reputations have been acquired----'

'You speak,' said I, interrupting him at this place--'you speak as if
humble men like myself were to occupy their place in history, and not
lie down in the dust of the churchyard undistinguishable and forgotten.'

'When they cease to act otherwise than to deserve commemoration, rely
upon it their course is a false one. Our conscience may be--indeed often
is--a bribed judge; and it is only by representing to ourselves how
our modes of acting and thinking would tell upon the minds of others,
reading of but not knowing us, that we arrive at that certain rule of
right so difficult in many worldly trials.

'And do you think a man becomes happier by this?'

'I did not say happier,' said he, with a sorrowful emphasis on the last
word. 'He may be better.'

With that he rose from his seat, and looking at his watch he apologised
for leaving me so suddenly, and depar