"Were it really the case," answered Phil. "that I am better informed than my neighbours in the science which you ascribe to me; a point which I utterly dissent from, I should be apt perhaps to take credit for my skill as resulting from the very reason that, according to your view, might excuse its deficiency, namely, to those retired habits which lead me to study a few, rather than glance my eye over a multitude. It is with men as with books. You may skim over too great a number to read any with profit. With some few exceptions, the characters of which mankind is made up, are easily classified; and if you master a score of distinct specimens from each tribe with care and accuracy, you will find the sum of your knowledge considerably to exceed that which has been gleaned from a larger surface, where less attention has been brought to the task of investigation. A certain impatience of decision leads people frequently to pronounce upon as anomalies, what a severer scrutiny would prove to be well understood, and belonging to accredited divisions of human character." "I seldom meet with a _real_ non-descript, though appearances may puzzle me for a time, and though I have not been in a crowd for many years, I meet in succession with individuals of all sorts, and perhaps am enabled to form a more discriminating judgment of each single figure as it passes before me than I could do were my mind distracted by many objects together. The whole being made up of parts, one may give a shrewd guess at the collective effect from acquaintance with the separate atoms." "From what you say," said I, "a man ought to live _out_ of the world, to judge rightly of those men who compose it."--"No, my young friend, not quite so _terse_. There is no more _necessary_ connection between knowledge of the world and retirement, than between naval tactics and an old gentleman sitting by his fireside in Hampshire; yet it so happened, that the present system of breaking the line, which was of such astonishing importance to us in the last war, was the invention of a man unconnected with naval affairs, and who, marshalling a parcel of cherry-stones after dinner upon his table, proved to a practical understanding how the object could be achieved, and what a Clarke projected, was accomplished by a Rodney."