What had he done that was at
all worth doing? He had seen to the proper management of his
estates,--well! any one with a grain of self-respect and love of
independence would do the same. He had travelled and amused himself,--he
had studied languages and literature,--he had made many friends; but
after all said and done, the _bonde's_ cutting observations had
described him correctly enough. The do-nothing, care-nothing tendency,
common to the very wealthy in this age, had crept upon him
unconsciously; the easy, cool, indifferent nonchalance common to men of
his class and breeding was habitual with him, and he had never thought
it worth while to exert his dormant abilities. Why then, should he now
begin to think it was time to reform all this,--to rouse himself to an
effort,--to gain for himself some honor, some distinction, some renown
that should mark him out as different to other men? why was he suddenly
seized with an insatiate desire to be something more than a mere
"mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility"--why? if not to make himself
worthy of--ah! There he had struck a suggestive key-note! Worthy of
what? of whom? There was no one in all the world, excepting perhaps
Lorimer, who cared what became of Sir Philip Errington, Baronet, in the
future, so long as he would, for the present, entertain and feast his
numerous acquaintances and give them all the advantages, social and
political, his wealth could so easily obtain.
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