But Pen showed her that it was not he who made the books, though it was
absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French by an acquaintance
with the most celebrated writers of the day, and that it was as clearly
his duty to read the eminent Paul de Kock, as to study Swift or Moliere.
And Mrs. Pendennis yielded with a sigh of perplexity. But Miss Laura was
warned off the books, both by his anxious mother, and that rigid moralist
Mr. Arthur Pendennis himself, who, however he might be called upon to
study every branch of literature in order to form his mind and to perfect
his style, would by no means prescribe such a course of reading to a
young lady whose business in life was very different.
In the course of this long vacation Mr. Pen drank up the bin of claret
which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the son remark
that there was not a headache in a hogshead; and this wine being
exhausted, he wrote for a further supply to "his wine merchants," Messrs.
Binney and Latham of Mark Lane, London: from whom, indeed, old Doctor
Portman had recommended Pen to get a supply of port and sherry on going
to college.
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