Now I want you to understand, old boy, that I fully appreciated my mother's motives.

She was quite right, I dare say, about my wasting my life; quite right, too, about the benefit of settling down; and she was also very kind to take all the trouble of selecting a wife off my hands.

Under other circumstances I dare say I should have thought the matter over, and perhaps I should have been induced even to go so far as to survey the lady from a distance, and argue the point with my mother pro and con.
But the fact is, the thing was distasteful, and wouldn't bear thinking about, much less arguing.

I was too lazy to go and explain the matter, and writing was not my forte.

Besides, I didn't want to thwart my mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings; and so the long and the short of it is, I solved the difficulty and cut the knot by crossing quietly over to Norway.