it so. Not a dishonourable weakness!«
    Lætitia racked her brain for the connection of his present speech with the
preceding dialogue. She was baffled, from not knowing »the heat of the centre in
him« as Vernon opaquely phrased it in charity to the object of her worship.
    »Well,« said he, unappeased, »and besides the passion to excel, I have
changed somewhat in the heartiness of my thirst for the amusements incident to
my station. I do not care to keep a stud - I was once tempted: nor hounds. And I
can remember the day when I determined to have the best kennels and the best
breed of horses in the kingdom. Puerile! What is distinction of that sort, or of
any acquisition and accomplishment? We ask! One's self is not the greater. To
seek it, owns to our smallness, in real fact; and when it is attained, what
then? My horses are good, they are admired, I challenge the county to surpass
them: well? These are but my horses; the praise is of the animals, not of me. I
decline to share in it. Yet I know men content to swallow the praise of their
beasts and be semi-equine. The littleness of one's fellows in the mob of life is
a very strange experience! One may regret to have lost the simplicity of one's
forefathers, which could accept those and other distinctions with a cordial
pleasure, not to say pride. As for instance, I am, as it is called, a dead shot.
Give your acclamations, gentlemen, to my ancestors, from whom I inherited a
steady hand and quick sight. They do not touch me. Where I do not find myself -
that I am essentially I - no applause can move me. To speak to you as I would
speak to none, admiration - you know that in my early youth I swam in flattery -
I had to swim to avoid drowning! - admiration of my personal gifts has grown
tasteless. Changed, therefore, inasmuch as there has been a growth of
spirituality. We are all in submission to mortal laws, and so far I have indeed
changed. I may add that it is unusual for country gentlemen to apply themselves
to scientific researches. These are, however, in the spirit of the time. I
apprehended that instinctively when at College. I forsook the classics for
science. And thereby escaped the vice of domineering self-sufficiency peculiar
to classical men, of which you had an amusing example in the carriage, on the
way