called out "I am amazed Mr Harrel can suffer such a picture as this to
be in his house. I hate a portrait, 'tis so wearisome looking at a
thing that is doing nothing!"

"Do you like historical pictures, Sir, any better?"

"O no, I detest them! views of battles, murders, and death! Shocking!
shocking!--I shrink from them with horror!"

"Perhaps you are fond of landscapes?"

"By no means! Green trees and fat cows! what do they tell one? I hate
every thing that is insipid."

"Your toleration, then," said Cecilia, "will not be very extensive."

"No," said he, yawning, "one can tolerate nothing! one's patience is
wholly exhausted by the total tediousness of every thing one sees, and
every body one talks with. Don't you find it so, ma'am?"
"_Sometimes_!" said Cecilia, rather archly.

"You are right, ma'am, extremely right; one does not know what in the
world to do with one's self. At home, one is killed with meditation,
abroad, one is overpowered by ceremony; no possibility of finding ease
or comfort. You never go into public, I think, ma'am?"

"Why not to be much _marked_, I find!" said Cecilia, laughing.

"O, I beg your pardon! I believe I saw you one evening at Almack's: I
really beg your pardon, but I had quite forgot it."