A lake or large pond, with concrete banks and two artificial islands, held the centre of the park, and on the monotonous stretches of immaculate grass there were deer to be seen wherever anybody could reasonably expect them.
Diana surveyed it all with a lively dislike.

She pitied Lady Lucy and Mr.Marsham because they must live in such a place.

Especially, surely, must it be hampering and disconcerting to a man, preaching the democratic gospel, and looking forward to the democratic millennium, to be burdened with a house and estate which could offer so few excuses for the wealth of which they made an arrogant and uninviting display.
Immense possessions and lavish expenditure may be, as we all know, so softened by antiquity, or so masked by taste, as not to jar with ideals the most different or remote.

But here "proputty! proputty!" was the cry of every ugly wood and tasteless shrubbery, whereas the prospective owner of them, according to his public utterances and career, was magnificently careless of property--was, in fact, in the eyes of the lovers of property, its enemy.

The house again spoke loudly and aggressively of money; yet it was the home of a champion of the poor.
Well--a man cannot help it, if his father has suffered from stupidity and bad taste; and encumbrances of this kind are more easily created than got rid of.