Thus may one, not a conscious sage, play the right tune on this human nature of ours:  by forbearance, put it in the wrong; and then, by not refusing the burden of an obligation, confer something better.  The instrument is simpler than we are taught to fancy.  But it was doubtless owing to a strong emotion in his soul, as well as to the stuff he was made of, that the youth behaved as he did.  We are now and then above our own actions; seldom on a level with them.  Evan, I dare say, was long in learning to draw any gratification from the fact that he had achieved without money the unparalleled conquest of a man.  Perhaps he never knew what immediate influence on his fortune this episode effected.

At Hillford they went their different ways.  The postillion wished him good speed, and Evan shook his hand.  He did so rather abruptly, for the postillion was fumbling at his pocket, and evidently rounding about a proposal in his mind.

My gentleman has now the road to himself.  Money is the clothing of a gentleman:  he may wear it well or ill.  Some, you will mark, carry great quantities of it gracefully:  some, with a stinted supply, present a decent appearance:  very few, I imagine, will bear inspection, who are absolutely stripped of it.  All, save the shameless, are toiling to escape that trial.  My gentleman, treading the white highway across the solitary heaths, that swell far and wide to the moon, is, by the postillion, who has seen him, pronounced no sham.  Nor do I think the opinion of any man worthless, who has had the postillion’s authority for speaking.  But it is, I am told, a finer test to embellish much gentleman-apparel, than to walk with dignity totally unadorned.  This simply tries the soundness of our faculties:  that tempts them in erratic directions.  It is the difference between active and passive excellence.  As there is hardly any situation, however, so interesting to reflect upon as that of a man without a penny in his pocket, and a gizzard full of pride, we will leave Mr. Evan Harrington to what fresh adventures may befall him, walking toward the funeral plumes of the firs, under the soft midsummer flush, westward, where his father lies.

CHAPTER VII

MOTHER AND SON

Rare as epic song is the man who is thorough in what he does.  And happily so; for in life he subjugates us, and he makes us bondsmen to his ashes.  It was in the order of things that the great Mel should be borne to his final resting-place by a troop of creditors.  You have seen (since the occasion demands a pompous simile) clouds that all day cling about the sun, and, in seeking to obscure him, are compelled to blaze in his livery at fall of night they break from him illumined, hang mournfully above him, and wear his natural glories long after he is gone.  Thus, then, these worthy fellows, faithful to him to the dust, fulfilled Mel’s triumphant passage amongst them, and closed his career.