I would zip in to commune with my Old Master crush of the moment — an Ingres first, and, one by one, works by Bellini, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Goya, Fragonard, Chardin, et al., and betimes the odd humble item, like a little Barbizon landscape by Théodore Rousseau, which felt like a secret revealed to me alone.
He rises early for work ("Up betimes and to my office"), where he is an excellent administrator, trying to get the lazy King's attention when he needs it.
Since man, of aught he leaves, knows aught, what is't to leave betimes?
Mme Callas, all sweetness at yesterday's rehearsal, had unfortunately had to leave betimes.
Pepys sadly recorded another busy day – up betimes, work meetings, dined at home, boat up the Thames to Whitehall via an encounter with an old amour ("Je did baiser elle") and finally with his long-suffering wife and a friend to walk in the park and a merry evening at The World's End pub, "and so home late".
So which sentiment most closely conforms to your idea of child-rearing? "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes"?
Unforgivably, Doran also cuts the lines where Hamlet says to Horatio, "Since no man knows of aught he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
Smart lad to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose.
Yet the doom of the German Empire may become the deliverance of the German people if they will betimes but seize and hold their own.
