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CHAPTER II
WAVERLEY-HONOUR---A RETROSPECT
It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment
of dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was a
melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted with
Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and estate he was
presumptive heir.
A difference in political opinions had early separated the Baronet
from his younger brother, Richard Waverley, the father of our hero.
Sir Everard had inherited from his sires the whole train of Tory or
High-Church predilections and prejudices, which had distinguished the
house of Waverley since the Great Civil War. Richard, on the contrary,
who was ten years younger, beheld himself born to the fortune of a
second brother, and anticipated neither dignity nor entertainment in
sustaining the character of Will Wimble. He saw early, that, to succeed
in the race of life, it was necessary he should carry as little weight
as possible. Painters talk of the difficulty of expressing the existence
of compound passions in the same features at the same moment: it would
be no less difficult for the moralist to analyse the mixed motives which
unite to form the impulse of our actions.
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