Edgar went away with a singing in his ears, which he could scarcely understand at first. In all his kindly careless life there had been so little occasion for that thrilling of the blood to the brain, in defence of the Self assailed, which now at once stimulated, and made him dizzy. He scarcely knew what it meant, neither could he realize the bitterness that came into his heart against his will, a most unusual guest. He went out from Lord Newmarch’s office, and walked long and far before he quite came to himself. Walking has often a similar effect to that which the poet tells us rhyme has, “the sad mechanic exercise, like dull narcotics numbing pain.” When he gradually emerged from the haze and heat of this first disagreeable encounter, Edgar took characteristic refuge in the serio-comic transformation which the whole matter underwent in Lord Newmarch’s hands. Instead of a simple question of employment for Edgar Earnshaw, it became the great man’s own business, a way of informing him as to the points in which his education was defective. Finding employment for Edgar interested him moderately; but finding information for himself, fired his soul;--the comical part of the whole being that he expected the other, whose personal interests were so closely concerned, to feel this superior view of the question as deeply as he himself did, and to put it quite above the vulgar preliminary of something to live by. To serve Lord Newmarch, and through him the Government, and through the Government the country, was not that, Edgar asked himself at last, feeling finally able to laugh again, a much more important matter than securing bread and butter for our thriftless man? As soon as he had laughed he was himself again, and the after processes of thought were more easy.