This club was Hatton's only relaxation. He had never entered
society; and now his habits were so formed, the effort would
have been a painful one; though with a first-rate reputation
in his calling and supposed to be rich, the openings were
numerous to a familiar intercourse with those middle-aged
nameless gentlemen of easy circumstances who haunt clubs, and
dine a great deal at each others' houses and chambers; men who
travel regularly a little, and gossip regularly a great deal;
who lead a sort of facile, slipshod existence, doing nothing,
yet mightily interested in what others do; great critics of
little things; profuse in minor luxuries and inclined to the
respectable practice of a decorous profligacy; peering through
the window of a clubhouse as if they were discovering a
planet; and usually much excited about things with which they
have no concern, and personages who never heard of them.
All this was not in Hatton's way, who was free from all
pretension, and who had acquired, from his severe habits of
historical research, a respect only for what was authentic.
These nonentities flitted about him, and he shrunk from an
existence that seemed to him at once dull and trifling.
Pages:
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439