We live in a strange world; for certainly it does seem strange to apply to a reverend divine of sixty years of age such an epithet as that of coxcomb. Yet after all there may be some truth and propriety in its application; for where the principle of conceitedness is very strong and belongs essentially to the character, age cannot remove it; years may make some difference in the mode of its display and the peculiarity of its development, but the principle remains the same. The reason why young people have the almost exclusive reproach of coxcombry and conceit is, that they have had as yet but little opportunity of comparing themselves with the rest of the world. When youth is over, and the conflicts and agitations of life have brought the mind much into contact with other minds, then the relative strength of the character is felt and appreciated, then the man knows himself to be what he is, and necessarily ceases to conceit himself to be what he is not. But when, as was the case with Mr Darnley the elder, it happens that a man during the course of his life has but little intercourse with the world, and when that little has no portion or part whatever of rivalry, contradiction, or opposition, then the delusions of conceit and vanity may endure to the last. Now Mr Darnley was not only constitutionally a coxcomb, but his situation was also peculiarly favorable for the cultivation and strengthening of this habit of mind. Yet with all this, and notwithstanding even his occasional moroseness, he was not by any means void of feeling, or without a susceptibility of kind emotions. The scene which he had witnessed in the poor man’s cottage made an impression on his mind, and that impression certainly was in favour of Penelope. But he did not suffer that impression to make any immediate alteration in his general thoughts and deportment towards her. He had therefore parted with her at the cottage coldly, formally, and politely. It has been seen that Mr Primrose was altogether and most widely different from Mr Darnley; it is not at all wonderful therefore that these two gentlemen should not understand each other. On the part of the rector of Neverden there might have been much pedantry and incomprehensiveness, seeing that he had lived uncontrolled and uncontradicted, and his intercourse had been for the most part with such as, by submission to his judgment, paid deference to his wisdom, or such as by the humble and obsequious bow acknowledged his high rank as a clergyman, and his wealth as a gentleman. So it came to pass that he could not understand the movements of such a mind as that of Mr Primrose.