. There is not a man in Fairport who is not a
devoted worshipper of the Golden Calf - the mammon of unrighteousness. Why, even
I, man, am so infected by the bad neighbourhood, that I feel inclined
occasionally to become an idolater myself.«
    »My principal amusements being literary,« answered Lovel, »and circumstances
which I cannot mention having induced me, for a time at least, to relinquish the
military service, I have pitched on Fairport as a place where I might follow my
pursuits without any of those temptations to society which a more elegant circle
might have presented to me.«
    »Aha!« replied Oldbuck, knowingly, - »I begin to understand your application
of my ancestor's motto. You are a candidate for public favour, though not in the
way I first suspected, - you are ambitious to shine as a literary character, and
you hope to merit favour by labour and perseverance?«
    Lovel, who was rather closely pressed by the inquisitiveness of the old
gentleman, concluded it would be best to let him remain in the error which he
had gratuitously adopted.
    »I have been at times foolish enough,« he replied, »to nourish some thoughts
of the kind.«
    »Ah, poor fellow! nothing can be more melancholy; unless, as young men
sometimes do, you had fancied yourself in love with some trumpery specimen of
womankind, which is indeed, as Shakspeare truly says, pressing to death,
whipping, and hanging all at once.«
    He then proceeded with inquiries, which he was sometimes kind enough to
answer himself. For this good old gentleman had, from his antiquarian
researches, acquired a delight in building theories out of premises which were
often far from affording sufficient ground for them; and being, as the reader
must have remarked, sufficiently opinionative, he did not readily brook being
corrected, either in matter of fact or judgment, even by those who were
principally interested in the subjects on which he speculated. He went on,
therefore, chalking out Lovel's literary career for him.
    »And with what do you propose to commence your debut as a man of letters? -
But I guess - poetry - poetry - the soft seducer of youth. Yes! there is an
acknowledging modesty of confusion in your eye and manner. And where lies your
vein? - are you inclined to soar to the higher regions of Parnassus, or to
flutter around the base of the hill?«
    »I have hitherto attempted only a few lyrical pieces,« said Lovel.
    »Just as I supposed - pruning
