'Ha, ha! Cyril consumptive! No
man's stronger and sounder, I am glad to tell you; but if by
ill-chance he should die and the title should come to me, then,
mother, I'll wear the coronet, and it shall be made of the best
gingerbread gilt and ornamented thus. I'll give public lectures on
the British aristocracy and its origin, and its present relations to
the community, and my audience shall consist of society--that society
which is so much to aunt and the likes of her. Society shall be my
audience, and then, after my course of lectures is over, I will join
the Gypsies. But pray pardon me, mother. I had no idea I should thus
lose my temper. I should not have lost it so entirely had I not
witnessed how you are suffering from the tyranny of this blatant
bugbear called "Society."'
'My suffering, Henry, has brought me nearer to your line of thought
than you may suppose. It has taught me that when the affections are
deeply touched everything which before had seemed so momentous stands
out in a new light, that light in which the insignificance of the
important stands revealed.
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