Saturday September 19th, 1868
My pleasant visit is drawing near its termination; but I still have any amount to write. Sir John the redoubted Indian hero has succumbed, yielded up his colours and himself, rescue or no rescue, tied bound prisoner at the feet of ‘Sweet seventeen', who to tell the truth is somewhat perplexed about what to do with her conquest. Whatever can have possessed him to take my pretty smiles and words given as freely to the lowest peasant so much au sérieux, I can't conceive, for to treat him as I did Morland never even entered my mind, and to him I was only a shade more gracious than to the general public.
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He caught me by myself in the cedar room, standing with me head leaning against the mantel piece, looking down idly into the fire, my thoughts as far from him as from Kelham itself. After a few banal remarks, during which I was meditating a plausible excuse for disappearing, he began lamenting his solitude, in a sentimental tone, that my quick perceptions caught, and thought boded no good. ‘I can't say I pity you in the least,' was my slightly heartless answer. ‘If the country bores you, take a house in London and patronise the Park morning and afternoon. You'll find plenty of society there.' But all this little manège was entirely thrown away on the individual for whose edification it was enacted. When a man has once made up his mind to make a fool of himself it requires nothing less than an earthquake to stop him.
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You can’t always rely on the Great British summer — but you can rely on its watchesBritish watchmakers have excelled themselves in recent months — releasing bright and beautiful timepieces that you'll want on your wrist through summer, and beyond.
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Simon Jenkins: 50 years of saving Britain's buildings, from triumphs and disasters to the great country house we bought for £1In 1975, a new organisation was set up with the express aim of saving Britain's most beautiful and historic buildings from the wrecking ball. How has SAVE fared in the 50 years since then far? Simon Jenkins — who was involved as a trustee right from the very start — looks back on half a century of successes... and one or two painful failures.
