These arrangements, with the beautifying and furnishing of the
house and the restoration of the church in memory of my father,
occupied and amused me for a year or so, but when they were
finished time began to hang heavy on my hands. What was the use
of possessing about £20,000 a year when there was nothing upon
which it could be spent? For after all my own wants were few and
simple and the acquisition of valuable pictures and costly
furniture is limited by space. Oh! in my small way I was like
the weary King Ecclesiast. For I too made me great works and had
possessions of great and small cattle (I tried farming and lost
money over it!) and gathered me silver and gold and the peculiar
treasure of kings, which I presume means whatever a man in
authority chiefly desires, and so forth. But "behold all was
vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the
sun."

So, notwithstanding my wealth and health and the deference
which is the rich man's portion, especially when the limit of his
riches is not known, it came about that I too "hated life," and
this when I was not much over thirty. I did not know what to do;
for Society as the word is generally understood, I had no taste;
it bored me; horse-racing and cards I loathed, who had already
gambled too much on a big scale. The killing of creatures under
the name of sport palled upon me, indeed I began to doubt if it
were right, while the office of a junior county magistrate in a
place where there was no crime, only occupied me an hour or two a
month.

Lastly my neighbours were few and with all due deference to
them, extremely dull. At least I could not understand them