ime, I do not feel disposed
to be put out of my way because it is not the way of the world--_Le
Chemin du Monde_, as a Frenchman entitled Congreve's comedy{1}--but I
assure you these seven young women live here as they might do in the
temple of Vesta.

1 Congreve, le meilleur auteur comique d'Angleterre: ses
pieces les plus estimees sont Le Fourbe, Le Vieux Garcon,
Amour pour Amour, L Epouse du Matin, Le Chemin du Monde.--
Manuel Bibliographique. Par G. Peignot. Paris, 1800.

It was a singular combination of circumstances that induced and enabled
me to form such an establishment; but I would not give it up, nor alter
it, nor diminish it, nor increase it, for any earthly consideration.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ You hinted that, besides Milton's verses, you
had another association of ideas with living in the top of a tower.

_Mr. Falconer._ I have read of somebody who lived so, and admitted to
his _sanctum_ only one young person, a niece or a daughter, I forget
which, but on very rare occasions would descend to speak to some
visitor who had previously propitiated the young lady to obtain him an
interview. At last the young lady introduced one who proposed for her,
and gained the consent of the recluse (I am not sure of his name, but
I always call him Lord Noirmont) to carry her off. I think this was
associated with some affliction that was cured, or some mystery that was
solved, and that the hermit returned into the everyday world. I do not
know where I read it, but I have always liked the idea of living like
Lord Noirmont, when I shall have become a sufficiently disappointed man.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ You look as little like a disappointed man as
any I have seen; but as you have neither daughter nor niece, you would
have seven links instead of one between the top of your tower and the
external world.

_Mr. Falconer._ We are all born to disappointment. It is as well to be
prospective. Our happiness is not in what is, but in what is to be. We
may be disappointed in our everyday realities, and if not, we may make
an ideality of the unattainable, and quarrel with Nature for not giving
what she has not to give. It is unreasonable to be so disappointed, but
it is disappointment not the less.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is something like the disappointment of the
men of Gotham, when they could not fish up the moon from the sea.

_Mr. Falconer._ It is very like it, and there are more of us in the
p