George Gissing

“ Of Lady Ogram he thought with positive affection; to the end of his life he would revere her memory. Constance Bride he esteemed as a loyal friend; never would he fail in gratitude to her; she should have his confidence, and he would often seek her counsel; a good, able girl of the best modern type. Last of all there came into his mind the visage of a small, impulsive woman, with freckled oval face, and hair the colour of an autumn elm-leaf, Iris Woolstan; to her, too, how much he was beholden. Good, foolish, fidgetty Iris Woolstan! ”

“ They did not talk much, but, when he had begun to perspire freely, Dymchurch looked at his companion, and said:
"Now here's a thing I never thought of. Neglect your garden for a few weeks, and it becomes a wilderness; nature conquers it back again. Think what that means; how all the cultivated places of the earth are kept for men only by ceaseless fighting with nature, year in, year out."
"And that's true, sir, that's true. I've thought of it sometimes, but then I'm a gardener, you see, and it's my business, as you may say, to have such thoughts." ”

“ Under his soothing talk, Mrs. Woolstan recovered herself; but she had a preoccupied air.
"If you regard me as a serious friend," she said at length with some embarrassment, "you can easily prove it, and put my mind at ease."
"How?" asked Dyce, with a quick, startled look.
"You have said more than once that a man and woman who were really friends should be just as men are with each other—plain-spoken and straightforward and—and no nonsense."
"That's my principle. I won't have any woman for a friend on other terms." ”

“ There's nothing whatever in the man, and he'll never do anything as long as he lives. You know that as well as I do."
"I think you are mistaken," May answered, in an absent voice, her look betraying some travail of the mind, as if she were really debating with herself the question of Dymchurch's prospects.
"Do you mean that?" cried Lashmar, with annoyance.
"I certainly shouldn't call him a 'dreaming nobody,'" replied May, in the tone of dignified reproof. "Lord Dymchurch is very thoughtful, and very well-informed, and has very high principles." ”

“ The barbarian who imagines himself on the pinnacle of refinement is in a parlous state—far more likely to retrograde than to advance."
"There should be a league of landowners," said Miss Tomalin, "pledged to forbid any such horror on their own property."
"I don't know that I have much faith in leagues," returned Sir William. "I am a lost individualist. Let everyone try to civilise himself; depend upon it, it's the best work he can do for the world at large."
"And yet," put in Lord Dymchurch, "the world can't do without apostles. Do you think mere example has ever availed much?" ”

“ Woolstan devoted herself to her child, until, when Leonard was nine, she entrusted him to a tutor very highly spoken of by friends of hers, a young Oxford man, capable not only of instructing the boy in the most efficient way, but of training whatever force and originality his character might possess. She paid a hundred and fifty pounds a year for these invaluable services—in itself not a large stipend, but large in proportion to her income. And Iris had never grudged the expenditure, for in Dyce Lashmar she found, not merely a tutor for her son, but a director of her own mind and conscience. ”

“ Punctually at eleven, Lady Ogram descended. The carriage was at the door.
This stately drive, alone with the autocrat of Rivenoak, animated the young man. He felt that the days of his insignificance were over, that his career—the career so often talked about—had really begun. A delightful surprise gave piquancy to his sensations; had he cared to tell himself the truth, he would have known that, whatever his self-esteem, he had never quite believed in the brilliant future of which he liked to dream. It is one thing to merit advancement, quite another to secure it. ”

“ But till a man a married, no one can say what he'll make of his life. You've plenty of brains, more than most men, but I don't think you've got too much of what I call backbone. If you make a fool of yourself—as most men do—in marriage, it's all up with you. I want to see you safe. Go where you will, you'll find no better wife, better in every way for you, than Constance Bride. You want a woman with plenty of common sense as well as uncommon ability; the kind of woman that'll keep you going steadily—up—up! ”

“ Her look fell.
"But no man can do without help. The strong man is he who knows how to choose his helper, and at the right moment. I am at a crisis of my life, and—it is to you that I turn."
"I of course feel that to be a great compliment, Mr. Lashmar," said May, recovering her grand air. "I promise you to do what I can. But you mustn't count on me for impossibilities."
"I count on nothing that isn't easy for you—with your character, your influence."
"Thank you, again. My first piece of advice to you is to win the election." ”

“ In the moments when Dyce Lashmar was neither aware of being observed nor consciously occupied with the pressing problems of his own existence, his face expressed a natural amiability, inclining to pensiveness. The features were in no way remarkable; they missed the vigour of his father's type without attaining the regularity which had given his mother a claim to good looks. Such a visage falls to the lot of numberless men born to keep themselves alive and to propagate their insignificance. ”

“ With an unusually quick step, the old lady moved towards the library. There, occupied with a newspaper, sat a man whose fifty years still represented the prime of life, a tall, athletically-built man, his complexion that of a schoolboy after summer holidays, his brown hair abundant and crisp, spring and stay declared in every muscle of his limbs and frame. Lightly he arose, gracefully he swung forward, with the bow and smile of one who knows not constraint. Mr. Kerchever followed the law, but he also, whenever a chance offered, followed the hounds, and with more gusto. ”

“ And Constance, for her part, was hardly less interested in Nietzsche. She, too, secretly liked this insistence on the right of the strong, for she felt herself one of them. She, too, for all her occupation with social reform, was at core a thorough individualist, desiring far less the general good than her own attainment of celebrity as a public benefactress. Nietzsche spoke to her instincts, as he does to those of a multitude of men and women, hungry for fame, avid of popular applause. But she, like Lashmar, criticised her philosopher from a moral height. ”

“ How I shall enjoy it!"
"You are very kind!"
"Oh, don't think of it in that way!" exclaimed Miss Tomalin. "I have always thought more of principles than of persons. It isn't in my nature to take anything up unless I feel an absolute conviction that it is for the world's good. At Northampton I often offended people I liked by what they called my obstinacy when a principle was at stake. I don't want to praise myself, but I really can say that it is my nature to be earnest and thorough and disinterested."
"Of that I am quite sure," said Lashmar, fervently. ”

“ At each waking from hag-ridden slumbers, the blackest despondency beset him; once or twice his tortured brain even glanced towards suicide; temptation lurking in the assurance that, by destroying himself, he would become, for a few days at all events, the subject of universal interest. He found no encouragement even in the thought of Iris Woolstan. Not only had he deeply offended her by his engagement to Constance Bride, but almost certainly she would hear from her friend Mrs. Toplady the whole truth of his disaster, which put him beyond hope of pardon. ”

“ Lashmar smiled. His arm fell lightly about her waist. "We have still nearly two hundred pounds a year," the whisper continued. "There's Len—but I must take him from school—"
"Pooh! We'll talk about that."
A cry of gratitude escaped her.
"Dyce! How good you are! How bravely you hear it, my own dear husband. I'll do anything, anything! We needn't have a servant. I'll work—I don't care anything if you still love me. Say you still love me!"
He kissed her hair.
"It's certain I don't hate you.—Well, we'll see how things look to-morrow. Who knows? It may be the real beginning of my career!" ”

“ Something assures me that, for a reward of my life's labours, I shall behold the squashing of Robb!"
Lady Ogram did not laugh. Her sense of humour was not very keen, and the present subject excited her most acrimonious feelings.
"We must get hold of the right man," she exclaimed, with a glance at Lashmar.
"Yes, the right man," said Breakspeare, turning his eyes in the same direction. "The man of brains, and of vigour; the man who can inspire enthusiasm; the man, in short, who has something to say, and knows how to say it. ”