I suspect you to require to learn by having
work in progress how important is ... is a quiet commencement of the day's task.
There is not a scholar who will not tell you so. We must have a retreat. These
invasions! - So you intend to have another ride to-day? They do you good.
To-morrow we dine with Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, an estimable person indeed,
though I do not perfectly understand our accepting. - You have not to accuse me
of sitting over wine last night, my Clara! I never do it, unless I am appealed
to for my judgement upon a wine.«
    »I have come to entreat you to take me away, papa.«
    In the midst of the storm aroused by this renewal of perplexity, Dr.
Middleton replaced a book his elbow had knocked over in his haste to dash the
hair off his forehead, crying: »Whither? To what spot? That reading of
Guide-books, and idle people's notes of Travel, and picturesque correspondence
in the newspapers, unsettles man and maid. My objection to the living in hotels
is known. I do not hesitate to say that I do cordially abhor it. I have had
penitentially to submit to it in your dear mother's time, kai triskakodaimon up
to the full ten thousand times. But will you not comprehend that to the older
man his miseries are multiplied by his years! But is it utterly useless to
solicit your sympathy with an old man, Clara?«
    »General Darleton will take us in, papa.«
    »His table is detestable. I say nothing of that; but his wine is poison. Let
that pass - I should rather say, let it not pass! - but our political views are
not in accord. True, we are not under the obligation to propound them in
presence, but we are destitute of an opinion in common. We have no discourse.
Military men have produced, or diverged in, noteworthy epicures: they are often
devout; they have blossomed in lettered men: they are gentlemen; the country
rightly holds them in honour; but, in fine, I reject the proposal to go to
General Darleton. - Tears?«
    »No, papa.«
    »I do hope not. Here we have everything man can desire; without contest, an
excellent host. You have your transitory tea-cup tempests, which you magnify to
hurricanes, in the approved historic manner of the book of Cupid. And all the
better; I repeat, it is the better