His Grace — page 180: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

174 HIS GRACE. as well as good horses to ride, had sufficed for our common contentment ; in vain for us Nature set about that slow annual awakening which appeals more to the young than to those who have seen many Springs come and go; in vain the hedgerows broke into bud and the crocuses and daffodils made bright patches of color in the borders; in vain the bitter east winds of March yielded to the sunshine and showers of April, and the new year (which ought of course to begin at the vernal equinox instead of in mid-winter) held out flattering promises of change. We knew that the only change which was in store for us was not going to be a change for the better, and it was hardly worth our while to maintain that elaborate affectation of jollity upon which we expended such gallant efforts. ‘The present never forgives and the past never returns : do what we would, we could not be what we had been a few short months before—ca wétait plus ca. It was at this time that I composed a dozen or so of those sonnets which, as a benevolent critic afterwards remarked, had the ring of true pathos. Other critics failed to detect that quality in them, and, upon dis- passionate re-perusal, I must confess that I fail to detect it myself. But that is only because I am not a poet. Had I been dowered with the gift of putting my thoughts into appropriate language, I must have been pathetic; for nobody could have realized more clearly than I did the tragic comedy of the whole situation. What, indeed, could have been more tragi- comic than that the life of such a girl as Nora should be unwittingly spoilt by a common-place, good-hearted, nonentity like Hurstbourne? It is true that very few lives are really spoilt by one unlucky love-affair, and I Eomichoo (@) “S (E(@)