the present chapter of Richard's history.

It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old earth was busy
with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the little bird sang, and Hippias
Feverel, the Dyspepsy, amazed, felt the Spring move within him. He
communicated his delightful new sensations to the baronet, his brother,
whose constant exclamation with regard to him, was: "Poor Hippias! All
his machinery is bare!" and had no hope that he would ever be in a
condition to defend it from view. Nevertheless Hippias had that hope,
and so he told his brother, making great exposure of his machinery to
effect the explanation. He spoke of all his physical experiences
exultingly, and with wonder. The achievement of common efforts, not
usually blazoned, he celebrated as triumphs, and, of course, had Adrian
on his back very quickly. But he could bear him, or anything, now. It
was such ineffable relief to find himself looking out upon the world of
mortals instead of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own
complicated frightful structure. "My mind doesn't so much seem to haunt
itself, now," said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering out of intense
puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish sufferings his had been: "I
feel as if I had come aboveground."

A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one who never gets
sympathy, or experiences compassion: and it is he whose groaning
petitions for charity do at last rout that Christian virtue. Lady
Blandish, a charitable soul, could not listen to Hippias, though she had
a heart for little mice and flies, and Sir Austin had also small patience
with his brother's gleam of health, which was just enough to make his
disease visible. He remembered his early follies and excesses, and bent
his ear to him as one man does to another who complains of having to pay
a debt legally incurred.