We caper and grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not his the power.  ’Tis all Fortune’s, whose puppet he is.  She deals her dispensations through him.  Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs not.  Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go through to fulfil them.  Probably he is the elect of Fortune, because of that notable faculty of being intent upon his own business:  “Which is,” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip, “with men to be valued equal to that force which in water makes a stream.”  This prelude was necessary to the present chapter of Richard’s history.

It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old earth was busy with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the little bird sang, and Hippias Feverel, the Dyspepsy, amazed, felt the Spring move within him.  He communicated his delightful new sensations to the baronet, his brother, whose constant exclamation with regard to him, was:  “Poor Hippias!  All his machinery is bare!” and had no hope that he would ever be in a condition to defend it from view.  Nevertheless Hippias had that hope, and so he told his brother, making great exposure of his machinery to effect the explanation.  He spoke of all his physical experiences exultingly, and with wonder.  The achievement of common efforts, not usually blazoned, he celebrated as triumphs, and, of course, had Adrian on his back very quickly.  But he could bear him, or anything, now.  It was such ineffable relief to find himself looking out upon the world of mortals instead of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own complicated frightful structure.  “My mind doesn’t so much seem to haunt itself, now,” said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering out of intense puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish sufferings his had been:  “I feel as if I had come aboveground.”

A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one who never gets sympathy, or experiences compassion:  and it is he whose groaning petitions for charity do at last rout that Christian virtue.  Lady Blandish, a charitable soul, could not listen to Hippias, though she had a heart for little mice and flies, and Sir Austin had also small patience with his brother’s gleam of health, which was just enough to make his disease visible.  He remembered his early follies and excesses, and bent his ear to him as one man does to another who complains of having to pay a debt legally incurred.

“I think,” said Adrian, seeing how the communications of Hippias were received, “that when our Nemesis takes lodgings in the stomach, it’s best to act the Spartan, smile hard, and be silent.”