The Spanish had
contributed to his stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The earlier
literature of the northern nations did not escape the study of one who
read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding.
And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might
justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds
dignify to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated
situation in society.
The occasional attention of his parents might indeed have been of
service, to prevent the dissipation of mind incidental to such a
desultory course of reading. But his mother died in the seventh year
after the reconciliation between the brothers, and Richard Waverley
himself, who, after this event, resided more constantly in London, was
too much interested in his own plans of wealth and ambition, to notice
more respecting Edward, than that he was of a very bookish turn, and
probably destined to be a bishop. If he could have discovered and
analysed his son's waking dreams, he would have formed a very different
conclusion.
CHAPTER IV
CASTLE-BUILDING
I have already hinted, that the dainty, squeamish, and fastidious taste
acquired by a surfeit of idle reading, had not only rendered our hero
unfit for serious and sober study, it had even disgusted him in some
degree with that in which he had hitherto indulged.
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