The absence of real work, and the quantity of mock work, both alike made the life wearisome to him; but he could not endure the idea that it should be written in history that he had allowed himself to be made a faineant Prime Minister, and then had failed even in that.

History would forget what he had done as a working Minister in recording the feebleness of the Ministry which would bear his name.
The one man with whom he could talk freely, and from whom he could take advice, was now with him, here at his Castle.

He was shy at first even with the Duke of St.Bungay, but that shyness he could generally overcome, after a few words.

But though he was always sure of his old friend's sympathy and of his old friend's wisdom, yet he doubted his old friend's capacity to understand himself.

The young Duke felt the old Duke to be thicker-skinned than himself and therefore unable to appreciate the thorns which so sorely worried his own flesh.