as
saved from the suspicion of a medical adventurer by the accidents of
birth and fortune. I belonged to an ancient family (a branch of the once
powerful border-clan of the Fenwicks) that had for many generations held
a fair estate in the neighbourhood of Windermere. As an only son I had
succeeded to that estate on attaining my majority, and had sold it to
pay off the debts which had been made by my father, who had the costly
tastes of an antiquary and collector. The residue on the sale insured me
a modest independence apart from the profits of a profession; and as I
had not been legally bound to defray my father's debts, so I obtained
that character for disinterestedness and integrity which always in
England tends to propitiate the public to the successes achieved by
industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional ability I might
possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivated with
assiduity the sciences and the scholarship which are collaterally
connected with the study of medicine. Thus, in a word, I established
a social position which came in aid of my professional repute, and
silenced much of that envy which usually embitters and sometimes impedes
success.

Dr. Faber retired at the end of the two years agreed upon. He went
abroad; and being, though advanced in years, of a frame still robust,
and habits of mind still inquiring and eager, he commenced a lengthened
course of foreign travel, during which our correspondence, at first
frequent, gradually languished, and finally died away.

I succeeded at once to the larger part of the practice which the labours
of thirty years had secured to my predecessor. My chief rival was a
Dr. Lloyd, a benevolent, fervid man, not without genius, if genius be
present where judgment is absent; not without science, if that may be
science which fails in precision,--one of those clever desultory men
who, in adopting a profession, do not give up to it the whole force and
heat of their minds. Men of that kind habitually accept a mechanical
routine, because in the exercise of their ostensible calling their
imaginative faculties are drawn away to pursuits more alluring.
Therefore, in their proper vocation they are seldom bold or
inventive,--out of it they are sometimes both to excess. And when they
do take up a novelty in their own profession they cherish it with an
obstinate tenacity, and an extravagant passion, unknown to those quiet
philosophers who take up novelties