The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper

Case of General Opel

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Title: The Case of General Opel
Author: George Meredith
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4493] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 5,
2002]
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THE CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY CAMPER
By George Meredith

CHAPTER I
An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long

before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since
his retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous
common, with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along
the borders of a park, for which he promptly exchanged his heart, and
so gradually within a stone's-throw or so of the river-side, where he
determined not solely to bestow his affections but to settle for life. It
may be seen that he was of an adventurous temperament, though he had
thought fit to loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, however, had
been hired for the very special purpose of helping him to pass in review
the lines of what he called country houses, cottages, or even sites for
building, not too remote from sweet London: and as when Coelebs goes
forth intending to pursue and obtain, there is no doubt of his bringing
home a wife, the circumstance that there stood a house to let, in an airy
situation, at a certain distance in hail of the metropolis he worshipped,
was enough to kindle the General's enthusiasm. He would have taken
the first he saw, had it not been for his daughter, who accompanied him,
and at the age of eighteen was about to undertake the management of
his house. Fortune, under Elizabeth Ople's guiding restraint, directed
him to an epitome of the comforts. The place he fell upon is only to be
described in the tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week after
taking it he modestly followed them by terming it bijou. In time, when
his own imagination, instigated by a state of something more than mere
contentment, had been at work on it, he chose the happy phrase, 'a
gentlemanly residence.' For it was, he declared, a small estate. There
was a lodge to it, resembling two sentry-boxes forced into union, where
in one half an old couple sat bent, in the other half lay compressed;
there was a backdrive to discoverable stables; there was a bit