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70
PEACOCK
further inspection, may possibly have counted
for something in his decision. But the obvious
explanation is that a man who lives by the
head needs regular employment, and only
he who lives by the emotions has anything to
lose by it. Peacock's feelings were not so fine
that routine could blunt them, nor so deep
that an expression of them could give a
satisfactory purpose
Company's service at the age
to life. He entered the
of four-and-
thirty ; he found in it congenial friends,
congenial employment, and a salary that
enabled him to indulge his rather luxurious
tastes. He kept chambers in London, a house
on the Thames, a good cellar we may be sure,
and a wife. Of this part of his life we know
little beyond the fact that he was an able
and industrious official. Probably, we shall
not be far wrong in supposing him to have
been much like other officials, only more
intelligent, more witty, more sceptical, more
learned, and more " cranky " : also he kept
stored somewhere at the back of his mind a
spark of that mysterious thing called genius.
At any rate, his recorded opinion, " There
has never been anything perfect under the sun
except the compositions of Mozart," smacks
strongly of classical concerts and the Trea-
sury.
Though during this period
he wrote his