s an ass.

I was not surprised to hear that very soon Anthony formed the habit of
crossing the two neighbouring fields to seek the shade of a clump of elms
at a good distance from the cottage. He lay on the grass and smoked his
pipe all the morning. Mrs. Fyne wondered at her brother's indolent
habits. He had asked for books it is true but there were but few in the
cottage. He read them through in three days and then continued to lie
contentedly on his back with no other companion but his pipe. Amazing
indolence! The live-long morning, Mrs. Fyne, busy writing upstairs in
the cottage, could see him out of the window. She had a very long sight,
and these elms were grouped on a rise of the ground. His indolence was
plainly exposed to her criticism on a gentle green slope. Mrs. Fyne
wondered at it; she was disgusted too. But having just then 'commenced
author,' as you know, she could not tear herself away from the
fascinating novelty. She let him wallow in his vice. I imagine Captain
Anthony must have had a rather pleasant time in a quiet way. It was, I
remember, a hot dry summer, favourable to contemplative life out of
doors. And Mrs. Fyne was scandalized. Women don't understand the force
of a contemplative temperament. It simply shocks them. They feel
instinctively that it is the one which escapes best the domination of
feminine influences. The dear girls were exchanging jeering remarks
about "lazy uncle Roderick" openly, in her indulgent hearing. And it was
so strange, she told me, because as a boy he was anything but indolent.
On the contrary. Always active.

I remarked that a man of thirty-five was no longer a boy. It was an
obvious remark but she received it without favour. She told me
positively that the best, the nicest men remained boys all their lives.
She was disappointed not to be able to detect anything boyish in her
brother. Very, very sorry. She had not seen him for fifteen years or
thereabouts, except on three or four occasions for a few hours at a time.
No. Not a trace of the boy, he used to be, left in him.

She fell silent for a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of little
Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like. His dominant
trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because I've never
seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a very young baby. But
where was he all that time? Didn't he suffer contamination from the
indolence of Captain Ant