unhappily discovered that I had recently visited it. My friend
Matthews, who had been included in the audience, made desperate
attempts to escape; and once, seeing that I was fairly grappled,
began a conversation with his next neighbour. But the antiquary was
not to be put off. He stopped, and looked at Matthews with a
relentless eye. "Matthews," he said, "MATTHEWS!" raising his voice.
Matthews looked round. "I was saying that Dorchester was a very
interesting place." Matthews made no further attempt to escape, and
resigned himself to his fate.

Such men as the antiquary are certainly very happy people; they are
absorbed in their subject, and consider it to be of immense
importance. I suppose that their lives are, in a sense, well spent,
and that the world is in a way the gainer by their labours. My
friend the antiquary has certainly, according to his own account,
proved that certain ancient earthworks near Dorchester are of a
date at least five hundred years anterior to the received date. It
took him a year or two to find out, and I suppose that the human
race has benefited in some way or other by the conclusion; but, on
the other hand, the antiquary seems to miss all the best things of
life. If life is an educative process, people who have lived and
loved, who have smiled and suffered, who have perceived beautiful
things, who have felt the rapturous and bewildering mysteries of
the world--well, they have learnt something of the mind of God,
and, when they close their eyes upon the world, take with them an
alert, a hopeful, an inquisitive, an ardent spirit, into whatever
may be the next act of the drama; but my friend the antiquary, when
he crosses the threshold of the unseen, when he is questioned as to
what has been his relation to life, will have seen and perceived,
and learnt nothing, except the date of the Dorchester earthworks,