Useless to be dwelling on holiday pictures: Lakelands had hold of him!

Colney or somebody says, that the greater our successes, the greater the
slaves we become.--But we must have an aim, my friend, and success must
be the aim of any aim!--Yes, and, says Colney, you are to rejoice in the
disappointing miss, which saved you from being damned by your bullet on
the centre.--You're dead against Nature, old Colney.--That is to carry
the flag of Liberty.--By clipping a limb!

Victor overcame the Pessimist in his own royal cranium-Court. He
entertained a pronounced dissension with bachelors pretending to
independence. It could not be argued publicly, and the more the pity:--
for a slight encouragement, he would have done it: his outlook over the
waves of bachelors and (by present conditions mostly constrained)
spinsters--and another outlook, midnight upon Phlegethon to the thoughts
of men, made him deem it urgent. And it helped the plea in his own
excuse, as Colney pointed out to the son of Nature. That, he had to
admit, was true. He charged it upon Mrs. Burman, for twisting the most
unselfish and noblest of his thoughts; and he promised himself it was to
cease on the instant when the circumstance, which Nature was remiss in
not bringing about to-day or to-morrow, had come to pass. He could see
his Nataly's pained endurance beneath her habitual submission. Her
effort was a poor one, to conceal her dread of the day of the gathering
at Lakelands.

On the Sunday previous to the day, Dr. Themison accompanied the amateurs
by rail to Wrensham, to hear 'trial of the acoustics' of the Concert-
hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the railway-
carriage over Colney's description of Fashionable London's vast octopus