true civilization.
Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full of
work, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals and
sleep.

How different it was under the shadow of this old Vine! I am very
thankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of "wasted time," which
was at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards my
aged parents against the mere modern fuss of "work," against what John
Wesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them in
their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we
"pottered" through the days!--with what needless formalities, what
slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How
lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the
vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepened
into gloom!

At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient of
what one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I slept
oppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by the
circular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture only
made me laugh now.

Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink too
much, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, I
cannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very old
people like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow was
very great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soon
died away. The country was flat and damp too; and by and by neuralgia
kept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of my
great-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange how
quickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by,
till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at former
ambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in many
respects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to the
interests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of my
great-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men no
struggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wear
through them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty,
regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards past
beauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this aged
world should crumble to its close.

My grea