without the fatigue
of joining them, especially if the wind was in the east.

There was no affectation of costliness about the rooms, but a wonderful
accumulation of comfort. Every patent chair that proffered a variety in
the art of lounging found its place there; and near every chair a little
table, on which you might deposit your book or your coffee-cup, without
the trouble of moving more than your hand. In winter, nothing warmer
than the quilted curtains and Axminster carpets can be conceived; in
summer, nothing airier and cooler than the muslin draperies and the
Indian mattings. And I defy a man to know to what perfection dinner may
be brought, unless he had dined with Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Certainly,
if that distinguished personage had but been an egotist, he had been the
happiest of men. But, unfortunately for him, he was singularly amiable
and kind-hearted. He had the bonne digestion, but not the other
requisite for worldly felicity,--the mauvais cceur. He felt a sincere
pity for every one else who lived in rooms without patent chairs and
little coffee-tables, whose windows did not look on the Park, with sofas
niched into their recesses. As Henry IV. wished every man to have his
pot au feu, so Sir Sedley Beaudesert, if he could have had his way,
would have every man served with an early cucumber for his fish, and
a caraffe of iced water by the side of his bread and cheese. He thus
evinced on politics a naive simplicity which delightfully contrasted his
acuteness on matters of taste. I remember his saying, in a discussion on
the Beer Bill, "The poor ought not to be allowed to drink beer, it is
so particularly rheumatic! The best drink in hard work is dry
champagne,--not vtousseux; I found that out when I used to shoot on the
moors."

Indolent as Sir Sedley was, he had contrived to open an extraordinary
number of drains on his wealth.

First, as a landed proprietor there was no end to applications from
distressed farmers, aged poor, benefit societies, and poachers he
had thrown out of employment by giving up his preserves to please his
tenants.

Next, as a man of pleasure the whole race of womankind had legitimate
demands on him. From a distressed duchess whose picture lay perdu under
a secret spring of his snuff-box, to a decayed laundress to whom he
might have paid a compliment on the perfect involutions of a frill, it
was quite sufficient to be a daughter of Eve to establish a just claim
on Sir Sedley's in