Perhaps you would like to sit down? We can watch the
fireworks from the terrace. You ought to read Pepys' DIARY. That is
what I have been doing. I am also rather low-spirited just now. The end
of another spring, you know--it always makes me feel sad. Pepys is the
antidote. He is a tonic. Every Englishman ought to be compelled, for
the good of his soul, to go through Pepys once in three years."
"I must read him again," said the bishop who was not particularly
interested in the diarist just then.
"His universal zest! It seems to be extinct nowadays; it is a charm
that I have not discovered in any living Englishman. What a healthy
outlook! Not a trace of straining anywhere. He took life with both
hands. How he threw himself into his work, his amusements, his clothes
and women and politics and food and theatres and pictures. Warm heart,
cool head. So childlike, and yet so wise. There's only one thing that
troubles me about him--his love of music. It was so obviously sincere.
He not only liked it; he actually understood it.
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