She pitied (who but must?) Lady Clementina. She pitied her brother also:
and, seeing me dejected, she clasped her arms about me, and wet my cheek
with a sisterly tear.
Is it not very strange, Lucy, that his father should keep him so long
abroad? These free-living men! of what absurdities are they not guilty!
What misfortunes to others do they not occasion? One might, with the
excellent Clementina, ask, What had Mr. Grandison to do in Italy! Or
why, if he must go abroad, did he stay so long?
Travelling! Young men travelling! I cannot, my dear, but think it a
very nonsensical thing! What can they see, but the ruins of the gay,
once busy world, of which they have read?
To see a parcel of giddy boys under the direction of tutors or governors
hunting after--What?--Nothing: or, at best, but ruins of ruins; for the
imagination, aided by reflection, must be left, after all, to make out
the greater glories, which the grave-digger Time has buried too deep for
discovery.
And when this grand tour is completed, the travelled youth returns: And,
what is his boast? Why to be able to tell, perhaps his better taught
friend, who has never been out of his native country, that he has seen in
ruins, what the other has a juster idea of from reading; and of which, it
is more than probable, he can give a much better account than the
traveller.
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