What a deal of grief, care, and other harmful excitement does a healthy dulness and cheerful insensibility avoid! Nor do I mean to say that Virtue is not Virtue because it is never tempted to go astray; only that dulness is a much finer gift than we give it credit for being; and that some people are very lucky whom Nature has endowed with a good store of that great anodyne.
Pen used to go drearily in and out from the play at Chatteris during this season, and pretty much according to his fancy.

His proceedings tortured his mother not a little, and her anxiety would have led her often to interfere, had not the Major constantly checked, and at the same time encouraged her; for the wily man of the world fancied he saw that a favourable turn had occurred in Pen's malady.

It was the violent efflux of versification, among other symptoms, which gave Pen's guardian and physician satisfaction.

He might be heard spouting verses in the shrubbery walks, or muttering them between his teeth as he sat with the home party of evenings.

One day prowling about the house in Pen's absence, the Major found a great book full of verses in the lad's study.
They were in English, and in Latin; quotations from the classic authors were given in the scholastic manner in the foot-notes.