[The Castle Inn by Stanley John Weyman]@TWC D-Link bookThe Castle Inn CHAPTER V 17/20
Nay, Rousseau was printing.
But the 'Nouvelle Heloise,' though it was beginning to be read, had not yet set the mode of sensibility, or sent those to rave of nature who all their lives had known nothing but art.
The suppression of feeling, or rather the cultivation of no feeling, was still the mark of a gentleman; his maxim; honoured alike at Medmenham and Marly, to enjoy--to enjoy, be the cost to others what it might. Bred in such a school, Sir George should have viewed what had happened with polite indifference, and put himself out no further than was courteous, or might serve to set him right with a jury, if the worst came to the worst.
But, whether because he was of a kindlier stuff than the common sort of fashionables, or was too young to be quite spoiled, he took the thing that had occurred with unexpected heaviness; and, reaching his inn, hastened to his room to escape alike the curiosity that dogged him and the sympathy that, for a fine gentleman, is never far to seek.
To do him justice, his anxiety was not for himself, or the consequences to himself, which at the worst were not likely to exceed a nominal verdict of manslaughter, and at the best would be an acquittal; the former had been Lord Byron's lot, the latter Mr.Brown's, and each had killed his man.
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