Derval Court his house had been filled with gay companions, and was the
scene of lavish hospitality; but the estate was not in proportion to the
grandeur of the mansion, still less to the expenditure of the owner. He
had become greatly embarrassed; and some love disappointment (so it was
rumoured) occurring simultaneously with his pecuniary difficulties, he had
suddenly changed his way of life, shut himself up from his old friends,
lived in seclusion, taking to books and scientific pursuits, and as the
old woman said vaguely and expressively, "to odd ways." He had
gradually by an economy that, towards himself, was penurious, but which
did not preclude much judicious generosity to others, cleared off his
debts; and, once more rich, he had suddenly quitted the country, and
taken to a life of travel. He was now about forty-eight years old, and
had been eighteen years abroad. He wrote frequently to his steward,
giving him minute and thoughtful instructions in regard to the employment,
comforts, and homes of the peasantry, but peremptorily ordering him to
spend no money on the grounds and mansion, stating as a reason why the
latter might be allowed to fall into decay, his intention to pull it down
whenever he returned to England.

I stayed some time longer than my engagements well warranted at my
patient's house, not leaving till the sufferer, after a quiet sleep, had
removed from his bed to his armchair, taken food, and seemed perfectly
recovered from his attack.

Riding homeward, I mused on the difference that education makes, even
pathologically, between man and man. Here was a brawny inhabitant of
rural fields, leading the healthiest of lives, not conscious of the
faculty we call imagination, stricken down almost to Death's door by his
fright at an optical illusion, explicable, if examined, by the same simple
causes which had impressed me the night before with a moment's belief in a