My sentiments were not less changed
than my condition. I could quite well remember that my ruling
sensation in the days of heady youth was a mere schoolboy's
eagerness to get farthest forward in the race in which I had
engaged; to drink as many bottles as --; to be thought as good a
judge of a horse as --; to have the knowing cut of --'s jacket.
These were thy gods, O Israel!
Now I was a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved, and sometimes an
angry spectator, but still a spectator only, of the pursuits of
mankind. I felt how little my opinion was valued by those
engaged in the busy turmoil, yet I exercised it with the
profusion of an old lawyer retired from his profession, who
thrusts himself into his neighbour's affairs, and gives advice
where it is not wanted, merely under pretence of loving the crack
of the whip.
I came amid these reflections to the brow of a hill, from which I
expected to see Glentanner, a modest-looking yet comfortable
house, its walls covered with the most productive fruit-trees in
that part of the country, and screened from the most stormy
quarters of the horizon by a deep and ancient wood, which
overhung the neighbouring hill.
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