I met him the other day, up the road, with his cane and dog, and saluted him; he did not return my salutation.' 'He has certain opinions of his own,' said the youth, 'which are widely different from those which he has heard that you profess.' 'I respect a man for entertaining an opinion of his own,' said the elderly individual.

'I hold certain opinions; but I should not respect an individual the more for adopting them.

All I wish for is tolerance, which I myself endeavour to practise.

I have always loved the truth, and sought it; if I have not found it, the greater my misfortune.'[8] When Borrow is twenty years of age we have another glimpse of father and son, the father in his last illness, the son eager as usual to draw out his parent upon the one subject that appeals to his adventurous spirit, 'I should like to know something about Big Ben,' he says: 'You are a strange lad,' said my father; 'and though of late I have begun to entertain a more favourable opinion than heretofore, there is still much about you that I do not understand.

Why do you bring up that name?
Don't you know that it is one of my temptations?
You wish to know something about him?
Well, I will oblige you this once, and then farewell to such vanities--something about him.