No More Learning

There are no more hairs on his head than thoughts in his skull. To
merely look at him is to rob life of its dignity. Then there is nothing
in the shops but school-books and Sunday-school prizes. Excellent, no
doubt, for anyone who has not had to read as many as I have. Such a
choir! such rain! '

'You need some occupation peculiar to the place,' said the other,
baiting his hooks with worms out of the little porringer. 'I catch
eels. You should set some night-lines too. You bait them with worms in
this way, and put them among the weeds at the edge of the river. In the
morning you find an eel or two, if you have good fortune, turning round
and round and making the weeds sway. I shall catch a great many after
this rain. '

'What a suggestion! Do you mean to stay here,' said Howard, 'till your
mind rots like our most important parishioner's? '

'No, no!
To be quite frank with you,' replied the other, 'I have some
good looks and shall try to turn them to account by going away from
here pretty soon and trying to persuade some girl with money to fall in
love with me. I shall not be altogether a bad match, you see, because
after she has made me a little prosperous my uncle will die and make
me much more so. I wish to be able always to remain a lounger. Yes, I
shall marry money. My mother has set her heart on it, and I am not,
you see, the kind of person who falls in love inconveniently. For the
present--'

'You are vegetating,' interrupted the other.

'No, I am seeing the world. In your big towns a man finds his minority
and knows nothing outside its border. He knows only the people like
himself. But here one chats with the whole world in a day's walk, for
every man one meets is a class. The knowledge I am picking up may be
useful to me when I enter the great cities and their ignorance. But I
have lines to set. Come with me. I would ask you home, but you and my
mother, you know, do not get on well. '

'I could not live with anyone I did not believe in,' said Howard; 'you
are so different from me. You can live with mere facts, and that is
why, I suppose, your schemes are so mercenary.