His Grace — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 35 acquaintance with my future place of abode, and it certainly struck me that any duke who could not be satisfied with such a glorious and beautiful home must be an uncommonly hard duke to please. For the vast Tudor building, which is pronounced by competent judges to be as perfect a specimen of: that order of architecture as there is in existence, stands high, dominating a boundless expanse of park, where fallow- _ deer and Highland cattle can scarcely be conscious of any sense of captivity, and the timber is more magnifi- cent than anything that I know of elsewhere, and in the month of June the admiring spectator is seldom reminded of the proximity of the storm-swept German ocean, The number of people who cannot stand country-life unless they are supported by the presence of a crowd of fellow-creatures is, I know, large and increasing ; but personally I am incapable of entering into their feelings. 1 was brought up in the country; I love it and everything belonging to it, be the weather fair or foul; added to which I am not, and never was, fitted to shine in society. Consequently, I was by no means scared at the prospect of a prolonged period of solitude; nor, when I was shown the very comfortable quarters which had been prepared for my reception, did I see any reason to regret my stuffy little London lodgings. There is no occasion to weary the reader with a detailed account of the affairs which it was now my duty to take in hand or of the obstacles in my path which I had to surmount or push aside; I will only say, with regard to those obstacles, that they proved far less numerous than I had anticipated, and that there was every excuse for the old retainers who at GEomichoo m