s an
inevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men--men who
truckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside
the walls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus
within. In short--I am reporting my own conversation--you may be sure
I had all the good sense on my side."

"Your scheme is a good deal more difficult to carry out than the
Pythagorean community, though. You have not only got the old Adam in
yourself against you, but you have got all those descendants of the
original Adam who form the society around you. You see, I have paid
twelve or thirteen years more than you for my knowledge of
difficulties. But"--Mr. Farebrother broke off a moment, and then
added, "you are eying that glass vase again. Do you want to make an
exchange? You shall not have it without a fair barter."

"I have some sea-mice--fine specimens--in spirits. And I will throw in
Robert Brown's new thing--'Microscopic Observations on the Pollen of
Plants'--if you don't happen to have it already."

"Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higher price.
Suppose I ask you to look through my drawers and agree with me about
all my new species?" The Vicar, while he talked in this way,
alternately moved about with his pipe in his mouth, and returned to
hang rather fondly over his drawers. "That would be good discipline,
you know, for a young doctor who has to please his patients in
Middlemarch. You must learn to be bored, remember. However, you shall
have the monster on your own terms."

"Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humoring everybody's
nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humor?" said
Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and looking rather absently
at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in
exquisite writing. "The shortest way is to make your value felt, so
that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not."

"With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and
you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either
you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you
wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellows pull you.
But do look at these delicate orthoptera!"

Lydgate had after all to give some scrutiny to each drawer, the Vicar
laughing at himself, and yet persisting in the exhibition.

"Apropos of what you said abo