But the fact was that Vavasor cared very little
about the matter, and had a facility for following where he was led;
and, always preferring to make himself agreeable where there was no
restraining reason, why should he not gratify the writer of articles by
falling in with what he advanced? He had a light, easy way of touching
on things, as if all his concessions, conclusions, and concurrences were
merest matter of course; and thus making himself appear master of the
situation over which he merely skimmed on insect-wing. Mr. Raymount took
him not merely for a man of thought but one of some originality
even--capable at least of forming an opinion of his own, as is, he was
in the habit of averring, not one in ten thousand.
In relation to the wider circle of the country, Mr. Vavasor was so
entirely a nobody, that the acquaintance of a writer even so partially
known as Mr. Raymount was something to him. There is a tinselly halo
about the writer of books that affects many minds the most
_practical_, so called; they take it to indicate power, which, with
most, means ability in the direction of one's own way, or his party's,
and so his own in the end.
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