, Fagan's
man of business. Let 's have him in, MacNaghten; the fellow is a half
simpleton in many things. Let's talk to him."

"Would you ask Mr. Raper to join our breakfast?" asked Dan of the
innkeeper.

"He has just finished his own, sir; some bread and watercresses, with a
cup of milk, are all that he takes."

"Poor fellow!" said Dan, "I see him yonder in the summer-house; he
appears to be in hard study, for he has not raised his head since we
entered the room. I 'll go and ask him how he is."

MacNaghten had not only time to approach the little table where Raper
was seated unobserved, but even to look over the object of his study,
before his presence was recognized.

"German, Mr. Raper; reading German?" cried MacNaghten. "I know the
characters, at least."

"Yes, sir, it is German; an odd volume of Richter that I picked up a few
days ago. A difficult author at first, somewhat involved and intricate
in construction: here, for instance is a passage--"

"My dear friend, it is all a Greek chorus to me, or anything else you
can fancy equally unintelligible."

"It is the story of an humble man, a village cobbler, who becomes by
an accident of fortune suddenly rich. Now, the author, instead of
describing the incidents of life and the vicissitudes that encounter
him, leaves us only to guess, or rather to supply them for ourselves, by
simply dwelling upon all the 'Gedaenkskriege,' or mental conflicts, that
are the consequences of his altered position. The notion is ingenious,
and if not overlayed with a certain dreamy mysticism, would be very
interesting."

"I," said Dan, "would far rather hear of his acts than his reflections.
What he did would amuse me more to know than to learn why."

"But how easy to imagine the one!" exclaimed Raper. "Wealth has its
habits all stereotyped: from Dives to our own days the catalogue has
been ever the same, 'purple and fine linen.' And if some have added to
the mere sensual pleasures the higher enjoyments derivable from objects
of art and the cultivation of letters, has it not been because their
own natures were more elevated, and required such refinements as daily
necessaries? The humble man, suddenly enriched, lives no longer in the
sphere of his former associates, but ascends into one of whose habits he
knows nothing; and Jean Paul condemns him for this, and reminds him that
when a river is swollen by autumn rains it does not desert its
ancient channel, but enlarges the spher