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If Haldane had been left alone on an ice-floe in the Arctic Ocean he could scarcely have felt worse than he did during the remainder of the day after Mrs Arnot's departure A dreary and increasing sense of isolation oppressed him The words of his visitor, "What have you to do with the world?" and "If you were dead it would forget you in a few days," repeated theainst society died out in the consciousness of his weakness and insignificance What is the use of one's s a mountain with his fist? Only the puny hand feels the blow The world becaenerality even to be hated

In order to be athe objects of his spite, and exaggerating the sainst the universe It is a species of insanity, wherein a mind has lost perception of the correct relationship between different existences The poor hypochondriac who i satire onable to keep similar delusions to themselves

Mrs Arnot's plain, honest, yet kindly words had thron the walls of prejudice, and Haldane's mind lay open to the truth As has been said, his first ie and miserable sense of loneliness He sahat a slender hold he had upon the rest of hu of him, while, with few exceptions, those ere aware of his existence despised and detested him, and would breathe more freely if assured of his death He instinctively felt that the natural affections of his mother and sisters were borne down and almost overwhelmed by his course and character If they had any visitors in the seclusion to which his disgrace had driven them, his name would be avoided with morbid sensitiveness, and yet all would be as painfully conscious of him as if he were a corpse in the room, which by soht shed natural tears, he was not sure but that deep in their hearts would come a sense of relief should they hear that he was dead, and so could not deepen the stain he had already given to a name once so respectable He knew that his indifference and overbearing manner toward his sisters had alienated them from him; while in respect to Mrs Haldane, her aristocratic conventionality, the most decided trait of her character, would always be in sharp contest with her strong mother-love, and thus he would ever be only a source of disquiet and wretchedness whether present or absent In view of the discordant ele, there was not a place on earth less attractive than his own home