Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/115

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CHAPTER V.

1st Citizen.

Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth
That makes a vice of virtue by excess.

2d Citizen.

What if the coolness of our tardier veins
Be loss of virtue?

1st Citizen.

All things cool with time—
The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find
A general level, nowhere in excess.

2d Citizen.

'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,
That future middlingness.

In the evening, when Mr Lyon was expecting the knock at the door that would announce Felix Holt, he occupied his cushionless arm-chair in the sitting-room, and was skimming rapidly, in his shortsighted way, by the light of one candle, the pages of a missionary report, emitting occasionally a slight "Hm-m" that appeared to be expressive of criticism rather than of approbation. The room was dismally furnished, the only objects indicating an intention of ornament being a bookcase, a map of the Holy Land, an engraved portrait of Dr Doddridge, and a black bust with a coloured face, which for some reason or other was covered with green gauze. Yet