"One of the compensations belonging to an impatient nature is, that it soon burns itself out into the grey ash of indifference ; also, it was an early habit of mine to wipe my sums off the slate directly they were finished." ***** "This is a curiously independent little district, everyone follows his own sweet will, and things happen according to a fortuitous concourse of atoms. The police are so unpopular that the maids have all taken to smile on the postmen, and the result is, not to facilitate the delivery of letters. I saw one beaming youth emerge from an area some fifteen minutes late, his bag thrown contemptuously across his shoulder, and his radiant gaze bent upon a photograph ; of course, under such circumstances, I yielded in contented acquiescence on receiving a letter addressed J. Woodhouse, Esq., while my own poor letter wandered off into space." ***** " A dictum of Goethe's has burnt into my convictions, namely, that to believe in anything one must live in solitude." ***** "There is a dreamy meditative organ meandering in the distance, one of those tunes that, as Mrs. Poyser says, keep on asking questions, and insist on one's attempting to answer such puzzles as Cui bono — anything ? Quien sabe — anything ? As I heard a clever man say he had once, for three months, doubted his own existence ; but it was in his youth, before he had rheumatism." ***** "Don't you like political women ? I do — they scold so." ***** "I am so sorry ; such a panorama of people have been marching through this week of mine, that I totally forgot." *****
