I give you all these details because I think they will interest you as
showing how marvellously well these Freelanders have understood how to
substitute their 'iron slaves' for our house slaves. I will merely add that
the Association for Rendering Personal Services satisfied even my father's
very comprehensive demands. He declares that he never found better
attendance at the Bristol Hotel in Paris.
Not to weary you, I will spare you any description of the first and second
breakfast on the next day, and will only make your mouth water by
describing the principal meal, taken about six o'clock in the evening. But
first I must introduce you to two other members of the Ney family with whom
we became acquainted in the course of our second day. These are David's
aunt Clara, his father's sister, and her husband, Professor Noria, both
originals of a very special kind. Aunt Clara, at heart an ardent
Freelander, has a passion for incessantly arguing about the equality which
here prevails, in which 'truly high-toned' sentiments and manners cannot
possibly permanently exist. But woe to anyone who would venture to agree
with her in this. In spite of her sixty years, she is still a resolute
lively woman, with a very respectable remnant of what was once great
beauty. Nineteen years ago she married the professor, first because in him
she found an indefatigable antagonist in her attacks upon Freeland, and
next because he realised in a very high degree her ideal of manly
'distinction.' For Professor Noria is passionately fond of studying
heraldry, has all kinds of chivalrous and courtly ceremonials, from the
days of King Nimrod down to the present, at his fingers' ends, but has
always been too proud to degrade his knowledge by selling it for filthy
lucre. Being an enthusiast in the cause of equality and freedom he came to
Freeland, where for a few hours at morn and eve he works at gardening, and
thereby comfortably supports himself and his wife--children they have none;
but through the day he labours at his great heraldic work, which, if it is
ever finished, is to prove to the world that all the ills it has hitherto
suffered can be explained by the facts expressed in heraldry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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