He was addicted to a pompous rotundity of style, perhaps
he was rather absurd; but he was thoroughly good-natured, very anxious
to make himself useful, and devoted to Cowper, to whom, as a poet, he
looked up with an admiration unalloyed by any other feeling. Both of
them, as it happened, were engaged on Milton, and an attempt had been
made to set them by the ears; but Hayley took advantage of it to
introduce himself to Cowper with an effusion of the warmest esteem. He
was at Weston when Mrs. Unwin was attacked with paralysis, and
displayed his resource by trying to cure her with an electric-machine.
At Eartham, on the coast of Sussex, he had, by an expenditure beyond
his means, made for himself a little paradise, where it was his delight
to gather a distinguished circle. To this place he gave the pair a
pressing invitation, which was accepted in the vain hope that a change
might do Mrs. Unwin good.
From Weston to Eartham was a three days' journey, an enterprise not
undertaken without much trepidation and earnest prayer.
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