recluse Popanilla; for a recluse he had now become. Great students are
rather dull companions. Our Fantaisian friend, during his first
studies, was as moody, absent, and querulous as are most men of genius
during that mystical period of life. He was consequently avoided by the
men and quizzed by the women, and consoled himself for the neglect of
the first and the taunts of the second by the indefinite sensation that
he should, some day or other, turn out that little being called a great
man. As for his mistress, she considered herself insulted by being
addressed by a man who had lost her lock of hair. When the chest was
exhausted Popanilla was seized with a profound melancholy. Nothing
depresses a man's spirits more completely than a self-conviction of
self-conceit; and Popanilla, who had been accustomed to consider himself
and his companions as the most elegant portion of the visible creation,
now discovered, with dismay, that he and his fellow-islanders were
nothing more than a horde of useless savages.

This mortification, however, was soon succeeded by a proud consciousness
that he, at any rate, was now civilised; and that proud consciousness by
a fond hope that in a short time he might become a civiliser. Like all
projectors, he was not of a sanguine temperament; but he did trust that
in the course of another season the Isle of Fantaisie might take its
station among the nations. He was determined, however, not to be too
rapid. It cannot be expected that ancient prejudices can in a moment be
eradicated, and new modes of conduct instantaneously substituted and
established. Popanilla, like a wise man, determined to conciliate. His
views were to be as liberal, as his principles were enlightened. Men
should be forced to do nothing. Bigotry, and intolerance, and
persecution were the objects of his decided disapprobation; resembling,
in this particular, all the great and good men who have ever existed,
who have invariably maintained this opinion so long as they have been in