He was so staunch in politics, that during the doings of the last quarter of a century,--from the repeal of the Corn Laws down to the Ballot,--he had honestly declared one side to be as bad as the other.

Thus he felt that all his happiness was to be drawn from the past.

There was nothing of joy or glory to which he could look forward either on behalf of his country or his family.

His nephew,--and alas, his heir,--was a needy spendthrift, with whom he would hold no communication.

The family settlement for his wife and daughters would leave them but poorly off; and though he did struggle to save something, the duty of living as Sir Alured Wharton of Wharton Hall should live made those struggles very ineffective.
He was a melancholy, proud, ignorant man, who could not endure a personal liberty, and who thought the assertion of social equality on the part of men of lower rank to amount to the taking of personal liberty;--who read little or nothing, and thought that he knew the history of his country because he was aware that Charles I had had his head cut off, and that the Georges had come from Hanover.