It is not always easy to understand the justice
of these things: and it has often appeared to me that something of the
favouritism which is the bane of our governments on earth must needs
obtain at a higher tribunal. One man enters life with an entailed estate
worth seventy thousand a-year, while another finds himself in the hands
of the Jews before he is twenty years of age. 'There's something in this
world amiss shall be unriddled by-and-by,' as the poet observes. The
circumstances of my own existence I have ever regarded as dark and
enigmatic. And, indeed, the events of this life are altogether
inexplicable, my love. There is that fellow Sheldon, now, who began
life as a country dentist, a man without family or connections,
who--well, I will not repine. If I am spared to behold my daughter
mistress of a fine estate, although in a foreign country, I can depart in
peace. But you must have a house in town, my dear. Yes, London must be
your head-quarters. You must not be buried alive in Normandy. There is no
place like London. Take the word of a man who has seen the finest
Continental cities, and lived in them--that is the point, my love--lived
in them. For a fine afternoon in the beginning of May, an apartment in
the Champs Elysees, or the Boulevard, is an earthly paradise; but the
Champs Elysees in a wet December--the Boulevard in a sweltering August!
London is the only spot upon earth that is never intolerable.
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