e had to encounter with my charge, nor to repeat
all the means which, acting on your suggestion (a correct one), I
have employed to arouse feelings long dormant and confused, and
allay others long prematurely active and terribly distinct. The
evil was simply this: here was the intelligence of a man in all
that is evil, and the ignorance of an infant in all that is good.
In matters merely worldly, what wonderful acumen; in the plain
principles of right and wrong, what gross and stolid obtuseness!
At one time I am straining all my poor wit to grapple in an
encounter on the knottiest mysteries of social life; at another, I
am guiding reluctant fingers over the horn-book of the most obvious
morals. Here hieroglyphics, and there pot-hooks! But as long as
there is affection in a man, why, there is Nature to begin with!
To get rid of all the rubbish laid upon her, clear back the way to
that Nature and start afresh,--that is one's only chance.

Well, by degrees I won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom,
pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all "its perilous
stuff,"--not chiding, not even remonstrating, seeming almost to
sympathize, till I got him, Socratically, to disprove himself.
When I saw that he no longer feared me, that my company had become
a relief to him, I proposed an excursion, and did not tell him
whither.

Avoiding as much as possible the main north road (for I did not
wish, as you may suppose, to set fire to a train of associations
that might blow us up to the dog-star), and where that avoidance
was not possible, travelling by night, I got him into the
neighborhood of the old Tower.

I would not admit him under its roof. But you know the little inn,
three miles off, near the trout stream? We made our abode there.

Well, I have taken him into the village, preserving his incognito.
I have entered with him into cottages, and turned the talk upon
Roland. You know how your uncle is adored; you know what anecdotes
of his bold, warm-hearted youth once, and now of his kind and
charitable age, would spring up from the garrulous lips of
gratitude! I made him see with his own eyes, hear with his own
ears, how all who knew Roland loved and honored him,--except his
son. Then I took him round the ruins (still not suffering him to
enter the house); for those ruins are the key to Roland's
character,-