He was shrewd in the detection of trickery, and very confident in those who had once passed the ordeal of his well-schooled observing powers.

He had no particular tendency to meddle with the personal relations of those about him; but if they were forced upon him in any way, he was like to see into them at least as quickly as any of his neighbors who thought themselves most endowed with practical skill.
In leaving the duties of his office he considered himself, as he said a little despondently, like an old horse unharnessed and turned out to pasture.

He felt that he had separated himself from human interests, and was henceforth to live in his books with the dead, until he should be numbered with them himself.

He had chosen this quiet village as a place where he might pass his days undisturbed, and find a peaceful resting-place in its churchyard, where the gravel was dry, and the sun lay warm, and the glowing woods of autumn would spread their many-colored counterpane over the bed where he would be taking his rest.
It sometimes came over him painfully that he was never more to be of any importance to his fellow-creatures.

There was nobody living to whom he was connected by any very near ties.