I then asked them to direct me to the house of the physician: which they did, but told me that he had left the kingdom.
Determined however to make every possible enquiry, I went to the house; where I found only a person who was left in charge of the premises, and who knew nothing more than that the physician was gone with a patient to Lisbon.
These little incidents, trifling as they appeared, afforded me an excellent proof of the absurdity of false modesty: which induces men, from the egoistical fear of being thought vain, to conceal or disguise the truth. The physician had bestowed high eulogiums on my humanity: after which, he had hinted a desire, but with well-bred reserve, to know who I was; and I, catching the apparent delicacy of his feelings and thinking but very little on the subject, imagined there would be ostentation in personally taking to myself his praises, by giving him my name and place of abode. I therefore told him I would answer that question when we became better acquainted; if he should then find he had no reason to alter his good opinion of me.
Thus do men by affecting not to be vain, indulge a kind of double refined vanity; and lead themselves and others into error.
Being disappointed in all my enquiries of this day, my next care was to see Miss Wilmot. Surrounded as I was by persons who thought me inimical to them, and therefore were probably my inveterate enemies, I knew not what false reports might be spread; nor how to guard against them in the public opinion. But I had one consolation. Olivia had declared she was resolved to enquire, before she again gave the least credit to calumny. It was therefore essentially necessary that I should acquaint Miss Wilmot with all that had passed.
It was now evening; and, when I came to her lodgings, I found her brother and Turl both there. Though my absence had been short, the meeting gave me no little pleasure. It would likewise save me the trouble of a thrice told tale: for to friends like these my heart was always open; and I had something like an abhorrence of concealment, and secret transactions. I wished them to share in all my joys; and, as to my griefs, they not only excited their sympathy but produced remarks and counsel, by which they had often been cured.
I told my story; and it may well be imagined my hearers were neither inattentive nor unmoved. The selfishness and depravity into which men are driven, and the vices of which being thus impelled they are capable, exemplified as these vices were in my narration, drew heavy sighs from the gentle and kind hearted Lydia, made her much oppressed brother groan in spirit, and excited in Turl those comprehensive powers that trace the history of facts through a long succession, and teach, by miseries that are past, how miseries in future are to be avoided.
The general feeling however was that danger was hovering over me. The indignation of Wilmot, at the treatment of men who most endeavoured to deserve well of their age and country, was very strong.
Neither was Turl less moved. His manner was placid, yet his feelings were acute. But, though they might vibrate for a moment toward discord, they touched the true harmony at last. He who has fixed principles of action is soon called to a recollection of his duties, and the manner in which he ought to act.
Roused by his friendship for me, I should rather say by his affection, he collected his faculties; and presented to the imagination so sublime a picture of fortitude, and of the virtue of enduring injuries and oppression with dignity, that he prepared my mind most admirably for the trials that were to succeed.