his foibles fifty-fold, and he, though not liking it, of course not,
would yet have preserved a certain manly equanimity. How was it Lady
Camper had such power over him?--a lady concealing seventy years with a
rouge-box or paint-pot! It was witchcraft in its worst character. He
had for six months at her bidding been actually living the life of a
beast, degraded in his own esteem; scorched by every laugh he heard;
running, pursued, overtaken, and as it were scored or branded, and then
let go for the process to be repeated.




CHAPTER VIII

Our young barbarians have it all their own way with us when they fall
into love-liking; they lead us whither they please, and interest us in
their wishings, their weepings, and that fine performance, their
kissings. But when we see our veterans tottering to their fall, we
scarcely consent to their having a wish; as for a kiss, we halloo at them
if we discover them on a byway to the sacred grove where such things are
supposed to be done by the venerable. And this piece of rank injustice,
not to say impoliteness, is entirely because of an unsound opinion that
Nature is not in it, as though it were our esteem for Nature which caused
us to disrespect them. They, in truth, show her to us discreet,
civilized, in a decent moral aspect: vistas of real life, views of the
mind's eye, are opened by their touching little emotions; whereas those
bully youngsters who come bellowing at us and catch us by the senses
plainly prove either that we are no better than they, or that we give our
attention to Nature only when she makes us afraid of her. If we cared
for her, we should be up and after her reverentially in her sedater