‘He cannot object to my offering you a glass of negus,’ returned the adorable Sparkins, with some surprise.
‘Is that all?’ thought the disappointed Teresa. ‘What a fuss about nothing!’
‘It will give me the greatest pleasure, sir, to see you to dinner at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, on Sunday next at five o’clock, if you have no better engagement,’ said Mr. Malderton, at the conclusion of the evening, as he and his sons were standing in conversation with Mr. Horatio Sparkins.
Horatio bowed his acknowledgments, and accepted the flattering invitation.
‘I must confess,’ continued the father, offering his snuff-box to his new acquaintance, ‘that I don’t enjoy these assemblies half so much as the comfort—I had almost said the luxury—of Oak Lodge. They have no great charms for an elderly man.’
‘And after all, sir, what is man?’ said the metaphysical Sparkins. ‘I say, what is man?’
‘Ah! very true,’ said Mr. Malderton; ‘very true.’
‘We know that we live and breathe,’ continued Horatio; ‘that we have wants and wishes, desires and appetites—’
‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Frederick Malderton, looking profound.
‘I say, we know that we exist,’ repeated Horatio, raising his voice, ‘but there we stop; there, is an end to our knowledge; there, is the summit of our attainments; there, is the termination of our ends. What more do we know?’