He came again in the evening to speak with Mr. Vincy, who, just
returned from Stone Court, was feeling sure that it would not be long
before he heard of Mr. Featherstone's demise. The felicitous word
"demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits
even above their usual evening pitch. The right word is always a
power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. Considered as
a demise, old Featherstone's death assumed a merely legal aspect, so
that Mr. Vincy could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without
even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr. Vincy hated both
solemnity and affectation. Who was ever awe struck about a testator,
or sang a hymn on the title to real property? Mr. Vincy was inclined
to take a jovial view of all things that evening: he even observed to
Lydgate that Fred had got the family constitution after all, and would
soon be as fine a fellow as ever again; and when his approbation of
Rosamond's engagement was asked for, he gave it with astonishing
facility, passing at once to general remarks on the desirableness of
matrimony for young men and maidens, and apparently deducing from the
whole the appropriateness of a little more punch.