eed!" answered Lovel--"you surprise me greatly."

"We harden ourselves in vain," continued the Antiquary, pursuing his own
train of thought and feeling--"we harden ourselves in vain to treat with
the indifference they deserve, the changes of this trumpery whirligig
world. We strive ineffectually to be the self-sufficing invulnerable
being, the teres atque rotundus of the poet;--the stoical exemption which
philosophy affects to give us over the pains and vexations of human
life, is as imaginary as the state of mystical quietism and perfection
aimed at by some crazy enthusiasts."

"And Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!" said Lovel,
warmly--"Heaven forbid that any process of philosophy were capable so
to sear and indurate our feelings, that nothing should agitate them but
what arose instantly and immediately out of our own selfish interests!
I would as soon wish my hand to be as callous as horn, that it might
escape an occasional cut or scratch, as I would be ambitious of the
stoicism which should render my heart like a piece of the nether
millstone."

The Antiquary regarded his youthful companion with a look half of pity,
half of sympathy, and shrugged up his shoulders as he replied--"Wait,
young man--wait till your bark has been battered by the storm of sixty
years of mortal vicissitude: you will learn by that time, to reef your
sails, that she may obey the helm;--or, in the language of this world,
you will find distresses enough, endured and to endure, to keep your
feelings and sympathies in full exercise, without concerning yourself
more in the fate of others than you cannot possibly avoid."

"Well, Mr. Oldbuck, it may be so;--but as yet I resemble you more in your
practice than in your theory, for I cannot help being deeply interested
in the fate of the family we have just left."

"And well you may," replied Oldbuck. "Sir Arthur's embarrassments have
of late become so many and so pressing, that I am surprised you have not
heard of them. And then his absurd and expensive operations carried on
by this High-German landlouper, Dousterswivel"--

"I think I have seen that person, when, by some rare chance, I
happened to be in the coffee-room at Fairport;--a tall, beetle-browed,
awkward-built man, who entered upon scientific subjects, as it appeared
to my ignorance at least, with more assurance than knowledge--was very
arbitrary in laying down and asserting his opinions, and mixed the terms
of science with a s