As may be inferred from the tone of his conversation with Winterborne,

he had lately plunged into abstract philosophy with much zest; perhaps

his keenly appreciative, modern, unpractical mind found this a realm

more to his taste than any other. Though his aims were desultory,

Fitzpiers's mental constitution was not without its admirable side; a

keen inquirer he honestly was, even if the midnight rays of his lamp,

visible so far through the trees of Hintock, lighted rank literatures

of emotion and passion as often as, or oftener than, the books and

materiel of science.

But whether he meditated the Muses or the philosophers, the loneliness

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of Hintock life was beginning to tell upon his impressionable nature.

Winter in a solitary house in the country, without society, is

tolerable, nay, even enjoyable and delightful, given certain

conditions, but these are not the conditions which attach to the life

of a professional man who drops down into such a place by mere

accident. They were present to the lives of Winterborne, Melbury, and

Grace; but not to the doctor's. They are old association--an almost

exhaustive biographical or historical acquaintance with every object,

animate and inanimate, within the observer's horizon. He must know all

about those invisible ones of the days gone by, whose feet have

traversed the fields which look so gray from his windows; recall whose

creaking plough has turned those sods from time to time; whose hands

planted the trees that form a crest to the opposite hill; whose horses

and hounds have torn through that underwood; what birds affect that

particular brake; what domestic dramas of love, jealousy, revenge, or

disappointment have been enacted in the cottages, the mansion, the

street, or on the green. The spot may have beauty, grandeur,

salubrity, convenience; but if it lack memories it will ultimately pall

upon him who settles there without opportunity of intercourse with his

kind.

In such circumstances, maybe, an old man dreams of an ideal friend,

till he throws himself into the arms of any impostor who chooses to

wear that title on his face. A young man may dream of an ideal friend

likewise, but some humor of the blood will probably lead him to think

rather of an ideal mistress, and at length the rustle of a woman's

dress, the sound of her voice, or the transit of her form across the

field of his vision, will enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds

his eyes.

The discovery of the attractive Grace's name and family would have been

enough in other circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to put her

personality out of his head, to change the character of his interest in

her. Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most

have played with it as a toy. He was that kind of a man. But situated

here he could not go so far as amative cruelty. He dismissed all

reverential thought about her, but he could not help taking her

seriously.




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