Denzil brought news of the household at Chilton. Lady Fareham was as charming as ever, and though she had complained very often of bad health, she had been so lively and active whenever the whim took her, riding with hawk and hound, visiting about the neighbourhood, driving into Oxford, that Denzil was of opinion her ailments were of the spirits only, a kind of rustic malady to which most fine ladies were subject, the nostalgia of paving-stones and oil lamps. Henriette—she now insisted upon discarding her nick-name—was less volatile than in London, and missed her aunt sorely, and quarrelled with mademoiselle, who was painfully strict upon all points of speech and manners. George’s days of unalloyed idleness were also ended, for the Roman Catholic priest was now a resident in the house as the little boy’s tutor, besides teaching ‘Henriette the rudiments, and instructing her in her mother’s religion. Denzil told them even of the guests he had met at the Abbey; but of the master of the house his lips spoke not, till Sir John questioned him. “And Fareham? Has he that same air of not belonging to the family which I remarked of him in London?” “His lordship has ever an air of being aloof from everybody,” Denzil answered gravely. “He is solitary even in his sports, and his indoor life is mostly buried in a book.” “Ah, those books, they will be the ruin of nations! As books multiply, great actions will grow less. Life’s golden hours will be wasted in dreaming over the fancies of dead men; and the world will be over-full of brooding philosophers like Descartes, or pamphleteers like your friend Mr. Milton.” “Nay, sir, the world is richer for such a man as John Milton, who has composed the grandest poem in our language—an epic on a scale and subject as sublime as the Divine Comedy of Dante.” “I never saw Mr. Dante’s comedy acted, and confess myself ignorant of its merits.” “Comedy, sir, with Dante, is but a name. The Italian poem is an epic, and not a play. Mr. Milton’s poem will be given to the world shortly, though, alas! he will reap little substantial reward for the intellectual labour of years. Poetry is not a marketable commodity in England, save when it flatters a royal patron, or takes the vulgarer form of a stage-play. But this poem of Mr. Milton’s has been the solace of his darkened life. You have heard, perhaps, of his blindness?”