Life goes on everywhere like that fragment of it in
the picture, but while the man who knows more than his fellows can be
found in every company, and sees the light which beckons him on to the
higher meanings and better gifts, his place in society is not always
such a comfortable and honored one as Dr. Leslie's. What his friends
were apt to call his notions were not of such aggressive nature that
he was accused of outlawry, and he was apt to speak his mind
uncontradicted and undisturbed. He cared little for the friction and
attrition, indeed for the inspiration, which one is sure to have who
lives among many people, and which are so dear and so helpful to most
of us who fall into ruts if we are too much alone. He loved his
friends and his books, though he understood both as few scholars can,
and he cared little for social pleasure, though Oldfields was, like
all places of its size and dignity, an epitome of the world. One or
two people of each class and rank are as good as fifty, and, to use
the saying of the doctor's friend, old Captain Finch: "Human nature is
the same the world over."
Through the long years of his solitary life, and his busy days as a
country practitioner, he had become less and less inclined to take
much part in what feeble efforts the rest of the townspeople made to
entertain themselves. He was more apt to loiter along the street,
stopping here and there to talk with his neighbors at their gates or
their front-yard gardening, and not infrequently asked some one who
stood in need of such friendliness to take a drive with him out into
the country.
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