And now, Lovel, my good lad, be sincere with me--What make you from Wittenberg ?--why have you left your own country and professional pursuits, for an idle residence in such a place as Fairport?
A truant disposition, I fear." "Even so," replied Lovel, patiently submitting to an interrogatory which he could not well evade.

"Yet I am so detached from all the world, have so few in whom I am interested, or who are interested in me, that my very state of destitution gives me independence.

He whose good or evil fortune affects himself alone, has the best right to pursue it according to his own fancy." "Pardon me, young man," said Oldbuck, laying his hand kindly on his shoulder, and making a full halt--"sufflamina--a little patience, if you please.

I will suppose that you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life--that you cannot look back to those to whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection; but it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty--for your active exertions are due not only to society, but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to serve yourself and others." "But I am unconscious of possessing such powers," said Lovel, somewhat impatiently.

"I ask nothing of society but the permission of walking innoxiously through the path of life, without jostling others, or permitting myself to be jostled.