Everything he heard and almost
everything he saw offended him at some point. And, yet in the midst
of it all, he was conscious that he was surrounded by people who
claimed and made good their claims to superiority. What was a lord,
let him be ever so rich and have ever so many titles? And yet, even
with such a popinjay as Lord Rufford, he himself felt the lordship.
When that old farmer at the hunt breakfast had removed himself and
his belongings to the other side of the table the Senator, though
aware of the justice of his cause, had been keenly alive to the
rebuke. He had expressed himself very boldly at the rector's house
at Dillsborough, and had been certain that not a word of real
argument had been possible in answer to him. But yet he left the
house with a feeling almost of shame, which had grown into real
penitence before he reached Bragton. He knew that he had already
been condemned by Englishmen as ill-mannered, ill-conditioned and
absurd. He was as much alive as any man to the inward distress of
heart which such a conviction brings with it to all sensitive
minds. And yet he had his purpose and would follow it out. He was
already hard at work on the lecture which he meant to deliver
somewhere in London before he went back to his home duties, and had
made it known to the world at large that he meant to say some sharp
things of the country he was visiting.
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