His temper was perfect:  his outlook on the world remained that of a genial pessimist, a type of man common enough in our day.  He seemed to find a pleasure in urbanely mocking at his own futility.

‘I am the sort of man,’ he once said, ’of whom Tourgueneff would make an admirable study.  There’s tragedy in me, if you have the eyes to see it.  I don’t think any one can help feeling kindly towards me.  I don’t think any one can altogether despise me.  Yet my life is a mere inefficacy.’

‘You have had much enjoyment in your life, father,’ Annabel replied, ’and enjoyment of the purest kind.  In our age of the world I think that must be a sufficient content.’

’Why, there you’ve hit it, Bell.  ’Tis the age.  There’s somebody else I know who had better take warning by me.  But I think he has done.’

They were talking thus as they sat alone in one of the places of shelter on the Parade.  Other people had departed on the serious business of dining; but the evening was beautiful, and these two were tempted to remain and watch the sea.

‘You mean Mr. Egremont,’ Annabel said.

’Yes.  I wonder very much what he will be at my age.  He won’t be anything particular, of course.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he will do anything remarkable,’ the girl assented impartially.

‘Yet he might have done,’ recommenced her father, with some annoyance, as if his remark had not elicited the answer he looked for.  ’This mill-work of his I consider mere discipline.  I should have thought two years of it enough; three certainly ought to be.  A fourth, and he will never do anything else.’

‘What else should he do?’

Mr. Newthorpe laughed a little.

’There’s only one thing for such a fellow to do nowadays.  Let him write something.’

‘Write?’ Annabel mused.  ’Yes, I suppose there is nothing else.  Yet he happens to have sufficient means.’

’Do you mean it for an epigram?  Well, it will pass.  True, there’s the hardship of his position.  There’s nothing for him to do but to write, yet he is handicapped by his money.  I should have done something worth the doing, if I had had to write for bread and cheese.  Let him show that he has something in him, in spite of the fact that he has never gone without his dinner.  Yes, but that would prove him an extraordinary man, and we agree that he is nothing of the kind.’

’Haven’t you ever felt a sort of uneasy shame when you have heard of another acquaintance taking up the pen?’

’Of course I have.  I’ve felt the same when I’ve heard of someone being born.’

‘Suppose I announced to you that I was writing a novel?’

‘I am a philosopher, Bell.’

’Precisely.  It would be disagreeable to me if I heard that Mr. Egremont was writing a novel.  If he published anything very good, it wouldn’t trouble one so much after the event.  I don’t see why he should write.  I think he’d better continue to give half his day to something practical, and the other half to the pleasures of a man of culture.  It will preserve his balance.’