Some years after his son's death, he occupied
himself in the melancholy yet pleasing task of editing a volume of the
compositions of the deceased. from a pardonable partiality for the
writings of a beloved child, and from his own not very accurate
attainments in classical scholarship, he admitted into the collection
several pieces, both English and Latin, which fall considerably below
mediocrity. A few copies of the work were privately printed and offered as
presents to those friends with whom the author was particularly
acquainted.
Further extract from my
Manuscript, descriptive. Oratio recta:
Treillis stirred feebly in his room in the stillness of the second floor. He
frowned to himself quietly in the
gloom, flickering his heavy lids and
wrinkling his brow into pimpled corrugations. He twitched with his thick
fingers at the quilts. His bed was a timber article of great age in which
many of his forefathers had died and been born; it was delicately made and
embellished with delicately carved cornices. It was of Italian manufacture,
an early excursion of the genius of the great Stradivari. On one side of it
was a small table with books and type-darkened papers and on the other
a cabinet containing two chambers. also there was a small bakelite clock
which grappled with each new day as it entered his room through the window
from Peter Place, arranging it with precision into twenty-four hours. It was
quiet, servile and emasculated; its twin alarming gongs could be found if
looked for behind the dust-laden books on the mantelpiece. Treillis
had three separate suits of sleeping clothes and was accustomed to be
extremely fastidious as to the manner in which they were washed. He
supervised the weekly wash, which was carried out by his servant-girl on Tuesdays.