CHAPTER XI.
Down at Tredennis the year begun to fly with the speed of which uneventful enjoyable monotony alone possesses the secret.
"Our days are very similar here, and I find them very agreeable.
Edward thinks the same, he assures me, though I feel it may arise in his case from a want of breadth of view and lack of experience to argue from.
"In the summer months we get up early, and generally bathe in the stream, where I have contrived to get one of the pools sufficiently enlarged; as the weather gets colder I am compelled by my doctor to relinquish this.

Then we read and write till breakfast, which we have at eight o'clock.

In winter this is the first event of the day; in the morning we work for an hour or two and then go out, returning to lunch; after which we sun ourselves till five o'clock, or drive; and then, after tea, work again for three hours: the day thus concludes.
"I certainly don't coddle my boy, and I don't think I pet him, for I have the deepest horror of that practice: nothing is so weakening for both parties; it develops sentimentalism, and all mawkishness I abhor!--though I am what you would call ridiculously fond of him.
However, you must come and see us, and give me your most candid opinion, criticism, and censure on my educational methods.
"We drive into Truro once a week to market, and Edward goes in on messages, and for some mathematical training to the clergyman there.
I should like to find some _aequalis_ to make a companion for him.
He is English enough for anything, but I am afraid of his not keeping his appropriate boyishness if he is always hanging about with an old and serious valetudinarian like myself.

But I don't like any of the families hereabouts, and can't get to know the ones I _do_ like well enough to find some one to my mind.

I am very fastidious about my selection." And again: "Our Sundays are very peaceful days in this lazy land of the West.
We go to church--a very necessary part of an Englishman's education--lunch immediately, and then loaf on the downs over the creek, and I read to him till he yawns or goes to sleep; then we both play with Flora among the heather--or botanize--and go to church again." This letter led me, knowing as I did how pronounced Arthur's views were, to ask him why he took Edward to church, and the line that he intended to take with him generally with regard to religious matters.
"I have given the question," he writes, "a great deal of thought, and feel my way fairly clear now.