CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRIVILEGE OF GENIUS .-- LESTER'S SATISFACTION AT THE ASPECT OF EVENTS .-- HIS CONVERSATION WITH WALTER .-- A DISCOVERY.
"Alc .-- I am for Lidian: This accident no doubt will draw him from his hermit's life! "Lis .-- Spare my grief, and apprehend What I should speak." -- Beaumont and Fletcher .-- The Lovers' Progress.
In the course of the various conversations our family of Grassdale enjoyed with their singular neighbour, it appeared that his knowledge had not been confined to the closet; at times, he dropped remarks which shewed that he had been much among cities, and travelled with the design, or at least with the vigilance, of the observer; but he did not love to be drawn into any detailed accounts of what he had seen, or whither he had been; an habitual though a gentle reserve, kept watch over the past--not indeed that character of reserve which excites the doubt, but which inspires the interest.

His most gloomy moods were rather abrupt and fitful than morose, and his usual bearing was calm, soft, and even tender.
There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect, that winds into deep affections which a much more constant and even amiability of manners in lesser men, often fails to reach.

Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friends--friends who forgive much, who endure long, who exact little; they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends.

There lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to look upward--to revere: in this inclination lies the source of religion, of loyalty, and also of the worship and immortality which are rendered so cheerfully to the great of old.

And in truth, it is a divine pleasure to admire! admiration seems in some measure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honours in others.
We wed,--we root ourselves to the natures we so love to contemplate, and their life grows a part of our own.