So saying, he hastened away, vaulted on his horse, and with a gesture as if he gave me his hand to kiss, bade me another laughing adieu.  Left to myself, I strove with painful intensity to divine the motive of his request and foresee the events of the coming day.  The hours passed on unperceived; my head ached with thought, the nerves seemed teeming with the over full fraught—­I clasped my burning brow, as if my fevered hand could medicine its pain.  I was punctual to the appointed hour on the following day, and found Lord Raymond waiting for me.  We got into his carriage, and proceeded towards Windsor.  I had tutored myself, and was resolved by no outward sign to disclose my internal agitation.

“What a mistake Ryland made,” said Raymond, “when he thought to overpower me the other night.  He spoke well, very well; such an harangue would have succeeded better addressed to me singly, than to the fools and knaves assembled yonder.  Had I been alone, I should have listened to him with a wish to hear reason, but when he endeavoured to vanquish me in my own territory, with my own weapons, he put me on my mettle, and the event was such as all might have expected.”

I smiled incredulously, and replied:  “I am of Ryland’s way of thinking, and will, if you please, repeat all his arguments; we shall see how far you will be induced by them, to change the royal for the patriotic style.”

“The repetition would be useless,” said Raymond, “since I well remember them, and have many others, self-suggested, which speak with unanswerable persuasion.”

He did not explain himself, nor did I make any remark on his reply.  Our silence endured for some miles, till the country with open fields, or shady woods and parks, presented pleasant objects to our view.  After some observations on the scenery and seats, Raymond said:  “Philosophers have called man a microcosm of nature, and find a reflection in the internal mind for all this machinery visibly at work around us.  This theory has often been a source of amusement to me; and many an idle hour have I spent, exercising my ingenuity in finding resemblances.  Does not Lord Bacon say that, ’the falling from a discord to a concord, which maketh great sweetness in music, hath an agreement with the affections, which are re-integrated to the better after some dislikes?’ What a sea is the tide of passion, whose fountains are in our own nature!  Our virtues are the quick-sands, which shew themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability, finds them sink from under him.  The fashions of the world, its exigencies, educations and pursuits, are winds to drive our wills, like clouds all one way; but let a thunderstorm arise in the shape of love, hate, or ambition, and the rack goes backward, stemming the opposing air in triumph.”

“Yet,” replied I, “nature always presents to our eyes the appearance of a patient:  while there is an active principle in man which is capable of ruling fortune, and at least of tacking against the gale, till it in some mode conquers it.”