The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
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declared among his friends that he did so as a step preparatory
to his retirement. The altered method of work would not suit him at his age, nor,--as he said,--would it be profitable. He would take his silk, as a honour for his declining years, so that he might become a bencher at his Inn. But he had now been working for the last twelve or fourteen years with his silk gown, --almost as hard as in younger days, and with pecuniary results almost as serviceable; and though from month to month he declared his intention of taking no fresh briefs, and though he did now occasionally refuse work, still he was there with his mind as clear as ever, and with his body apparently as little affected by fatigue. Mr Wharton had not married till he was forty, and his wife had now been two years dead. He had had six children,--of whom but two were now left to make a household for his old age. He had been nearly fifty years when his youngest daughter was born, and was therefore now an old father of a young child. But he was one of those men who, as in youth they are never very young, so in age are they never very old. He could still ride his cob in the park jauntily; and did so carefully every morning in his life, after an early cup of tea and before his breakfast. And he could walk home from his chambers every day, and on Sundays could to the round of the parks on foot. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he dined at that old law club, the Eldon, and played whist after dinner till twelve o'clock. This was the great dissipation and, I think, the chief charm of his life. In the middle of August he and his daughter usually went for a month to Wharton Hall in Hertfordshire, the seat of his cousin Sir Alured Wharton;--and this was the one duty of his life which was a |
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