Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
page 30 of 1055 (02%)
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
DigitalOcean Referral Badge