At one time he had hopes of me; I felt he had.
But he was too impatient. He tried to bring me on too quickly. You
must take into consideration natural capacity. After listening to
him for an hour or two my mind would wander. I could not help it.
The careless laughter of uninformed middle-aged gentlemen and ladies
would creep to me from the croquet lawn or from the billiard-room. I
longed to be among them. Sometimes I would battle with my lower
nature. What did they know? What could they tell me? More often I
would succumb. There were occasions when I used to get up and go
away from him, quite suddenly.
I talked with young Bute during our walk about domestic architecture
in general. He said he should describe the present tendency in
domestic architecture as towards corners. The desire of the British
public was to go into a corner and live. A lady for whose husband
his firm had lately built a house in Surrey had propounded to him a
problem in connection with this point. She agreed it was a charming
house; no house in Surrey had more corners, and that was saying much.
But she could not see how for the future she was going to bring up
her children. She was a humanely minded lady. Hitherto she had
punished them, when needful, by putting them in the corner; the shame
of it had always exercised upon them a salutary effect. But in the
new house corners are reckoned the prime parts of every room.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85