Persuasion

Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who for his own amusement never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there if every other leaf were powerless he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.