Note 24 — Chapter XIII · THACKERAY'S RESEARCHES AMONGST THE WRITINGS OF THE EARLY ESSAYISTS—Continued.

Nothing is so valuable as Time; and he who comes undesired to help to pass it away, might with the same civility and good sense give you to understand that he is come, out of pure love to you, with a coach-and-six and all his family, to help you to pass away your estate. To have one's hours and recesses at the mercy of visitants and intruders is arrant thraldom; and though I am an author, I farther declare I would rather pay a mere trifler half-a-crown a time than be entertained with his visits and his compliments.