- end_line
- 6216
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6139
- text
- is a sad mistake. Men I hold in this respect to be like roosters; the
one that betakes himself to a lone and lofty perch is the hen-pecked
one, or the one that has the pip."
"You are abusive!" cried the bachelor, evidently touched.
"Who is abused? You, or the race? You won't stand by and see the human
race abused? Oh, then, you have some respect for the human race."
"I have some respect for _myself_" with a lip not so firm as before.
"And what race may _you_ belong to? now don't you see, my dear fellow,
in what inconsistencies one involves himself by affecting disesteem for
men. To a charm, my little stratagem succeeded. Come, come, think better
of it, and, as a first step to a new mind, give up solitude. I fear, by
the way, you have at some time been reading Zimmermann, that old Mr.
Megrims of a Zimmermann, whose book on Solitude is as vain as Hume's on
Suicide, as Bacon's on Knowledge; and, like these, will betray him who
seeks to steer soul and body by it, like a false religion. All they, be
they what boasted ones you please, who, to the yearning of our kind
after a founded rule of content, offer aught not in the spirit of
fellowly gladness based on due confidence in what is above, away with
them for poor dupes, or still poorer impostors."
His manner here was so earnest that scarcely any auditor, perhaps, but
would have been more or less impressed by it, while, possibly, nervous
opponents might have a little quailed under it. Thinking within himself
a moment, the bachelor replied: "Had you experience, you would know that
your tippling theory, take it in what sense you will, is poor as any
other. And Rabelais's pro-wine Koran no more trustworthy than Mahomet's
anti-wine one."
"Enough," for a finality knocking the ashes from his pipe, "we talk and
keep talking, and still stand where we did. What do you say for a walk?
My arm, and let's a turn. They are to have dancing on the hurricane-deck
to-night. I shall fling them off a Scotch jig, while, to save the
pieces, you hold my loose change; and following that, I propose that
you, my dear fellow, stack your gun, and throw your bearskins in a
sailor's hornpipe--I holding your watch. What do you say?"
At this proposition the other was himself again, all raccoon.
"Look you," thumping down his rifle, "are you Jeremy Diddler No. 3?"
"Jeremy Diddler? I have heard of Jeremy the prophet, and Jeremy Taylor
the divine, but your other Jeremy is a gentleman I am unacquainted
with."
"You are his confidential clerk, ain't you?"
"_Whose_, pray? Not that I think myself unworthy of being confided in,
but I don't understand."
"You are another of them. Somehow I meet with the most extraordinary
metaphysical scamps to-day. Sort of visitation of them. And yet that
herb-doctor Diddler somehow takes off the raw edge of the Diddlers that
come after him."
"Herb-doctor? who is he?"
"Like you--another of them."
"_Who?_" Then drawing near, as if for a good long explanatory chat, his
left hand spread, and his pipe-stem coming crosswise down upon it like a
ferule, "You think amiss of me. Now to undeceive you, I will just enter
into a little argument and----"
"No you don't. No more little arguments for me. Had too many little
arguments to-day."
"But put a case. Can you deny--I dare you to deny--that the man leading
a solitary life is peculiarly exposed to the sorriest misconceptions
touching strangers?"
"Yes, I _do_ deny it," again, in his impulsiveness, snapping at the
controversial bait, "and I will confute you there in a trice. Look,
you----"
- title
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