George Gissing

“ THERE is no severer test of personal vanity than to view oneself in the great mirrors of a pretentious shop. The day had been when Mr. Benjamin Borrows shrank from this ordeal, like any common man; now he was grown so accustomed to the experience, and so thoroughly satisfied with its results, that he could scarce have recalled the time when his five foot six of diagonal frock-coat and grey trousers, set against whatever background, seemed less than the type of perfect man. ”

“ He would maintain, perhaps with a little self-consciousness, that in a shop-walker face mattered little or nothing. In this walk through life the requisites for notable success were two: a perfect figure—Nature's free gift to her favourites—and a good address, also largely a native endowment, but in its completeness the result of art.
Never was man more satisfied with himself. In his unemphasised thought, his natural, everyday view of things, he, Benjamin Borrows, simply represented the great establishment which for some years he had adorned. ”

“ She would not dare to think of him as a possible husband; in her view, no doubt, he kept up his acquaintance with the family out of mere goodness, the loyalty of a man who will not forsake his old friends merely because he has risen in the world. ”