man.

When his years were verging on the undefined close of middle age he saw
the lives between him and the family property, one by one wither at the
touch of death, until at last there was no one but himself and his
daughter to succeed. He was at the time the head of a flourishing school
in a large manufacturing town; and it was not without some regret,
though with more pleasure, that he yielded his profession and retired to
Potlurg.

Greatly dwindled as he found the property, and much and long as it had
been mismanaged, it was yet of considerable value, and worth a wise
care. The result of the labor he spent upon it was such that it had now
for years yielded him, if not a large rental, one far larger at least
than his daughter imagined. But the sinking of the school-master in the
laird seemed to work ill for the man, and good only for the land. I say
_seemed_, because what we call degeneracy is often but the unveiling of
what was there all the time; and the evil we could become, we are. If I
have in me the tyrant or the miser, there he is, and such am I--as
surely as if the tyrant or the miser were even now visible to the
wondering dislike of my neighbors. I do not say the characteristic is so
strong, or would be so hard to change as by the revealing development it
must become; but it is there, alive, as an egg is alive; and by no means
inoperative like a mere germ, but exercising real though occult
influence on the rest of my character. Therefore, except the growing
vitality be in process of killing these ova of death, it is for the good
of the man that they should be so far developed as to show their
existence. If the man do not then starve and slay them they will drag
him to the judgment-seat of a fiery indignation.