against each other,
and I can think with less shame on having exposed myself about that cursed
Prætorium - though I am still convinced Agricola's camp must have been somewhere
in this neighbourhood. And now, Lovel, my good lad, be sincere with me - What
make you from Wittenberg? - why have you left your own country and professional
pursuits, for an idle residence in such a place as Fairport? A truant
disposition, I fear.«
    »Even so,« replied Lovel, patiently submitting to an interrogatory which he
could not well evade. »Yet I am so detached from all the world, have so few in
whom I am interested, or who are interested in me, that my very state of
destitution gives me independence. He whose good or evil fortune affects himself
alone, has the best right to pursue it according to his own fancy.«
    »Pardon me, young man,« said Oldbuck, laying his hand kindly on his
shoulder, and making a full halt - »sufflamina - a little patience, if you
please. I will suppose that you have no friends to share or rejoice in your
success in life - that you cannot look back to those to whom you owe gratitude,
or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection; but it is no less
incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty - for your active
exertions are due not only to society, but in humble gratitude to the Being who
made you a member of it, with powers to serve yourself and others.«
    »But I am unconscious of possessing such powers,« said Lovel, somewhat
impatiently. »I ask nothing of society but the permission of walking innoxiously
through the path of life, without jostling others, or permitting myself to be
jostled. I owe no man anything - I have the means of maintaining myself with
complete independence; and so moderate are my wishes in this respect, that even
these means, however limited, rather exceed than fall short of them.«
    »Nay, then,« said Oldbuck, removing his hand, and turning again to the road,
»if you are so true a philosopher as to think you have money enough, there's no
more to be said - I cannot pretend to be entitled to advise you; - you have
attained the acmé - the summit of perfection. And how came Fairport to be the
selected abode of so much self-denying philosophy? It is as if a worshipper of
the true religion had set up his staff by choice among the multifarious
idolaters of the land of Egypt