[CHAPTER XVII.]
SUNDAY—SUNDAY REASONS—A CHAMBER DIALOGUE.
unday Meditations.—When we first saw this place we called it The House of Good Intentions. It recurs to me forcibly at this moment, as I look over my note-book.
Under the heading of “Operanda,” or Works to be done, I find:—
- Continuation of Typical Developments. Vol. III.
- A Guide to Hertfordshire.
- A Lesser Dictionary of French words not generally found in other Lexicographical compilations.
- Theories on Dew. Practical utilitarian results.
- A Commentary on hitherto obscure portions of Shakespeare's plays, with a life of the Great Poet, gathered from obiter dicta, which nobody has, up to this time, noticed.
- “All Law founded upon Common Sense,” being a few steps towards the abolition of technicalities and antique repetitions in our legal proceedings.
- Pendant to the above, “Every man his own lawyer and somebody else's.”
- Studies in the Country. I thought I should have been able to write a good deal in this line while at the country-house. This was to include botany, farming, agriculture generally, with a resumption of what I took up years ago, as a Happy Thought, namely, “Inquiries into, and Observations upon, the Insect World.”
Nothing of all this have I done. Not a line. It is afternoon. We have most of us been to Church in the morning, except Boodels and Chilvern. Those who have not been, gave the following reasons for arriving at the same conclusion.
Boodels' reason. That he had a nasty headache, and should not get up. [This he sent down to say at breakfast.]
Milburd's reason. That the weather looked uncommonly like rain. That to get wet going to Church is a most dangerous thing, as you have to sit in your damp clothes.