“Don't get angry with me, Potts, any more than you would with a friend who 'd say, 'Take care how you pass over that bridge, I know it is rotten and must give way.'”
“Let me answer you,” said I, courageously, for I was acutely hurt to be thus arraigned before another. “It is more than likely that you, with your active habits and stirring notions of life, would lean very heavily on him who, neither wanting riches nor honors, would adopt some simple sort of dreamy existence, and think that the green alleys of the beech wood, or the little path beside the river, pleasanter sauntering than the gilded antechamber of a palace; and just as likely is it that you would take him roundly to task about wasted opportunities, misapplied talents, and stigmatize as inglorious indolence what might as possibly be called a contented humility. Now, I would ask you, why should one man be the measure of another? The load you could carry with ease might serve to crush me, and yet there may be some light burdens that would suit my strength, and in bearing which I might taste a sense of duty grateful as your own.”
“I have no patience with you,” began Crofton, warmly; but his sister stopped him with an imploring look, and then, turning to me, said,—
“Edward fancies that every one can be as energetic and active as himself, and occasionally forgets what you have just so well remarked as to the relative capacities of different people.”
“I want him to do something, to be something besides a dreamer!” burst he in, almost angrily.
“Well, then,” said I, “you shall see me begin this moment, tor I will get down here and walk briskly back to the town.” I called to the postilions to pull up at the same time, and in spite of remonstrances, entreaties,—almost beseeching from Mary Crofton,—I persisted in my resolve, and bade them farewell.
Crofton was so much hurt that he could scarcely speak, and when he gave me his hand it was in the coldest of manners.
“But you 'll keep our rendezvous, won't you!” said Mary; “we shall meet at Rome.”
“I really wonder, Mary, how you can force our acquaintanceship where it is so palpably declined. Good-bye,—farewell,” said he to me.
“Good-bye,” said I, with a gulp that almost choked me; and away drove the carriage, leaving me standing in the train of dust it had raised. Every crack of the postboys' whips gave me a shock as though I had felt the thong on my own shoulders; and, at last, as sweeping round a turn of the road the carriage disappeared from view, such was the sense of utter desolation that came over me, that I sat down on a stone by the wayside, overwhelmed. I do not know if I ever felt such an utter sense of destitution as at that moment. “What a wealth of friends must a man possess,” thought I, “who can afford to squander them in this fashion! How could I have repelled the counsels that kindness alone could have prompted? Surely Crofton must know far more of life than I did?” From this I went on to inquire why it was that the world showed itself so unforgiving to idleness in men of small fortune, since, if no burden to the community, they ought to be as free as their richer brethren. It was a puzzling theme, and though I revolved it long, I made but little of it; the only solution that occurred to me was, that the idleness of the humble man is not relieved by the splendors and luxuries which surround a rich man's leisure, and that the world resents the pretensions of ease unassociated with riches. In what a profound philosophy was it, then, that Diogenes rolled his tub about the streets! There was a mock purpose about it, that must have flattered his fellow-citizens. I feel assured that a great deal of the butterfly-hunting and beetle-gathering that we see around us is done in this spirit They are a set of idle folk anxious to indulge their indolence without reproach.