Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/5

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ETHEL CHURCHILL.
3

me more forcibly the narrowness of his mind, and the coldness of his heart. I do not believe that, in the whole course of his life, he had ever one lofty aspiration, or one warm and generous emotion. He is selfish, but it is selfishness on a singularly small scale: he is scarcely to be called ambitious; for his desires extend no further than a riband and a title—the wish to influence or to control his fellow men by talent and by exertion, would never enter the vacant space called his mind. He loves money, because it is the only shape that power takes, which he can comprehend. Moreover, he delights in its small miserable enjoyments; he likes a fine house, fine dresses, and fine dinners; they are the material pleasures of which alone he is capable.

I am like a plant brought from the kind and genial air of your affection, into a cold and bright atmosphere—a frosty day in winter is for ever around me; while the chill hardens my nature, and I shall soon become a very icicle. What would Lord Marchmont do with