George Gissing

“ Surely it was in some former state of existence that he had taken delightful holidays as a matter of course. He thought of the many lovely places he knew, and so many dream-landscapes; the London streets made them infinitely remote, utterly unreal. His three years of gloom and hardship were longer than all the life of placid contentment that came before. Lucerne! A man of more vigorous temper would have been maddened at the thought; but Mr. Tymperley nursed it all day long, his emotions only expressing themselves in a little sigh or a sadly wistful smile. ”

“ The ground-landlord was, to his mind, an embodiment of social injustice.
'Never in my life, Mr. Goldthorpe, did I grudge any payment of money as I grudge the ground-rent of these houses. I feel it as robbery, sir, as sheer robbery, though the sum is so small. When, in my ignorance, the matter was first explained to me, I wondered why my uncle had continued to pay this rent, the houses being of no profit to him. But now I understand, Mr. Goldthorpe; the sense of possession is very sweet. Property's property, even when it's leasehold and in ruins. ”

“ Not without some shaking of the hand did Humplebee pen this receipt; for a moment something seemed to come between him and the daylight, and a heaviness oppressed his inner man. But already he had despatched to London his formal acceptance of the post at five pounds a week, and in thinking of it his heart grew joyous. Two hundred and sixty pounds a year! It was beyond the hope of his most fantastic day-dreams. He was a made man, secure for ever against fears and worries. He was a man of substance, and need no longer shrink from making known the hope which ruled his life. ”

“ A small legacy from a relative had put it in his power to make a new, though humble, beginning in business; he established himself at the Pig and Whistle.
The condition in which he had to-day been discovered by Mr. Ruddiman was not habitual with him. Once a month, perhaps, his melancholy thoughts drove him to the bottle; for the most part he led a sullen, brooding life, indifferent to the state of his affairs, and only animated when he found a new and appreciative listener to the story of his wrongs. That he had been grievously wronged was Mr. Fouracres' immutable conviction. ”

“ I am their equal, I know; I can talk with them; their society is an exquisite delight to me;—but when it comes to thinking of intimacy with one of them—! Perhaps it is my long years of squalid existence. Perhaps I have come to regard myself as doomed to life on a lower level. I find it an impossible thing to imagine myself offering marriage—making love—to a girl such as those I meet in the big houses.'
'You will outgrow that,' said Munden. ”

“ I've been there every year of my life till this. One gets into the way of thinking of luxuries as necessities. I tell you what it is. If I sell my book as soon as it's done, we'll have a few days somewhere on the south coast together.'
Mr. Spicer betrayed uneasiness.
'I should like it much,' he murmured, 'but I fear, Mr. Goldthorpe, I greatly fear I can't afford it.'
'Oh, but I mean that you shall go with me as my guest! But for you, Mr.
Spicer, I might never have got my book written at all.'
'I feel it an honour, sir, I assure you, to have a literary man in my house,' was the genial reply. ”

“ The woman did not cheat him, and Thomas knew enough of life to respect her for this remarkable honesty; she was simply an ailing, lachrymose slut, incapable of effort. Her son, a lad who had failed in several employments from sheer feebleness of mind and body, practically owed his subsistence to Thomas Bird, whose good offices had at length established the poor fellow at a hairdresser's. To sit frequently for an hour at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs. Batty's talk of her own and her son's ailments, was in itself a marvel of charity. ”

“ She foresaw the horrors of pecuniary embarrassment. Her faith in the Rymers' promises was exhausted. This very morning she would go to see Mrs. Rymer, lay before her the plain facts of the case, and with all firmness—with unmistakable resolve—make known to her that, if the arrears were not paid within a month, notice to quit would be given, and the recovery of the debt be sought by legal process. Fear had made Miss Shepperson indignant; it was wrong and cowardly for people such as the Rymers to behave in this way to a poor woman who had only just enough to live upon. ”

“ It matters nothing whether you keep the rules of the blackguard game, or whether you cheat; the difference between bookmaker and blackleg is so small that it isn't worth talking about. You live by the plunder of people who are foolish and vicious enough to fall into your clutches. You're an enemy of society—that's the plain truth of it; as much an enemy of society as the forger or the burglar. You live—and live in luxury—by the worst vice of our time, the vice which is rotting English life, the vice which will be our national ruin if it goes on much longer. ”

“ Rymer, who was too much occupied with house and children to see much society, would have the advantage of a sympathetic friend under her own roof. The good lady's voice trembled with joyous eagerness as she unfolded the project, and her eyes grew large as she waited for the response.
Miss Shepperson felt such astonishment that she could only reply with incoherencies. An idea so novel and so strange threw her thoughts into disorder. She was alarmed by the invitation to live with people who were socially her superiors. ”

“ Well, sir, you know what houses those were. I came up to London at once (it was last autumn) , and I saw my uncle's lawyer, and he told me all about the property, and I saw it for myself. Ah, Mr. Goldthorpe! If ever a man suffered a bitter disappointment, sir!'
He ended on a little laugh, as if excusing himself for making so much of his story, and sat for a moment with head bowed. ”

“ Rockett was a healthy and capable woman of not more than fifty, but no less than her invalid husband would she have dreaded the thought of turning her back on Brent Hall. Rockett had often consoled himself with the thought that here he should die, here amid the fine old trees that he loved, in the ivy-covered house which was his only idea of home. And was it not a reasonable hope that Betsy, good steady girl, should some day marry the promising young gardener whom Sir Edwin had recently taken into his service, and so re-establish the old order of things at the lodge? ”

“ A year later there came one fateful day when he announced to his friend Harvey Munden that he was going to be married. His chosen bride was the daughter of a journeyman tailor—a tall, pale, unhealthy girl of eighteen, whose acquaintance he had made at a tobacconist's shop, where she served. He was going to marry her on principle—principle informed with callow passion, the passion of a youth who has lived demurely, more among books than men. Harvey Munden flew into a rage, and called upon the gods in protest. But Shergold was not to be shaken. ”

“ What could be more sensible? If the house were mine, I should do the same. What's the good of owning a house, and making no use of it?'
Great was Mr. Spicer's satisfaction.
'See what it is, sir,' he exclaimed, 'to have to do with a literary man! You are large-minded, sir; you see things from an intellectual point of view. I can't tell you how it gratifies me, sir, to have made your acquaintance. Let us go into the back room.'
With nervous boldness he threw the door open. Goldthorpe, advancing respectfully, saw that Mr. Spicer had not exaggerated the simplicity of his arrangements. ”

“ The baronet's daughter had come into town on her bicycle, as was declared by the short skirt, easy jacket, and brown shoes, which well displayed her athletic person. She was a tall, strongly built girl of six-and-twenty, with a face of hard comeliness and magnificent tawny hair. All her movements suggested vigour; she shook hands with a downward jerk, moved about the room with something of a stride and, in sitting down, crossed her legs abruptly.
From the first her look had turned with surprise to Miss Rockett. ”

“ But Miss Rodney, with a pleasant smile and nod, went her way, and Mrs. Turpin stood at the open door gazing after her, bewildered 'twixt satisfaction and resentment.
She was an easy-going, wool-witted creature, not ill-disposed, but sometimes mendacious and very indolent. Her life had always been what it was now—one of slatternly comfort and daylong gossip, for she came of a small tradesman's family, and had married an artisan who was always in well-paid work. ”

“ THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS It was five o'clock on a June morning. The dirty-buff blind of the lodging-house bedroom shone like cloth of gold as the sun's unclouded rays poured through it, transforming all they illumined, so that things poor and mean seemed to share in the triumphant glory of new-born day. In the bed lay a young man who had already been awake for an hour. ”

“ It has also misled him but too often into depicting a world of suicides, ignoring or overlooking a secret hobby, or passion, or chimaera which is the one thing that renders existence endurable to so many of the waifs and strays of life. He takes existence sadly—too sadly, it may well be; but his drabs and greys provide an atmosphere that is almost inseparable to some of us from our gaunt London streets. ”

“ More often than not it is the girl who decides for us. In more than half the marriages it's the woman who has practically proposed. She puts herself in a man's way. With her it rests almost entirely whether a man shall think of her as a possible wife or not. She has endless ways of putting herself forward without seeming to do so. As often as not, it's mere passivity that effects the end. She has only to remain seated instead of moving away; to listen with a smile instead of looking bored; to be at home instead of being out,—and she is making love to a man. ”

“ Rymer's business was as unremunerative as ever, and with difficulty he provided the household with food. One gleam of light kept up the courage of the family: the aged relative was known to be so infirm that he could only leave the house in a bath-chair; every day there might be news even yet more promising. Meanwhile, the girl of sixteen exercised her incompetence in the meaner departments of domestic life, and Miss Shepperson did all the work that required care or common-sense, the duties of nursemaid alone taking a great deal of her time. ”

“ Daffy, panting and wriggling, 'it's as plain as plain could be that there's no other course for a man who respects himself. I couldn't live a day with such a burden as that on my mind. A bookmaker! A blackguard bookmaker! To think my son should come to that! You know very well, Mr. Lott, that there's nothing I hate and despise more than horse-racing. ”

“ In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where the dwellings on either side were for the most part old and small, though here and there a brand-new edifice on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was undergoing change such as in our time destroys the picturesque in all London suburbs, the cheery dreamer chanced to turn his eyes upon a spot of desolation which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work. ”

“ Observe the middle-aged women; it would be small surprise that their good looks had vanished, but whence comes it they are animal, repulsive, absolutely vicious in ugliness? Mark the men in their turn; four in every six have visages so deformed by ill-health that they excite disgust; their hair is cut down to within half an inch of the scalp; their legs are twisted out of shape by evil conditions of life from birth upwards. Whenever a youth and a girl come along arm-in-arm, how flagrantly shows the man's coarseness! ”

“ Firmness was not the most legible characteristic of Miss Shepperson's physiognomy. A plain woman of something more than thirty, she had gentle eyes, a twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic smile. Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well became the occupant of furnished lodgings, at twelve and sixpence a week, in the unpretentious suburb of Acton. She was the daughter of a Hammersmith draper, at whose death, a few years ago, she had become possessed of a small house and an income of forty pounds a year ”

“ You're no longer a boy. In the eye of the law I am not responsible for you; but for very shame I must make good the wrong you have done in this case. I couldn't stand in my shop day by day, and know that every one was saying, "There's the man whose son ruined Mr. Lott's son-in-law and sold up his home," unless I had done all I could to repair the mischief. I shall ask Mr. Bowles for a full account of what he has lost to you, and if it's in my power, every penny shall be made good. He, thank goodness, seems to have learnt his lesson.'
'That I have, Mr. Daffy; that I have!' cried Bowles. ”

“ Sir Walter himself could never in reason have dared to aspire to such a fortunate conjuncture of talent, grace, and historic accuracy. He possessed only that profound knowledge of human nature, that moulding humour and quick sense of dialogue, that live, human, and local interest in matters antiquarian, that statesmanlike insight into the pith and marrow of the historic past, which makes one of Scott's historical novels what it is—the envy of artists, the delight of young and old, the despair of formal historians. Veranilda is without a doubt a splendid piece of work ”

“ Never losing temper, never seeming to notice the landlady's sullen mood, always using a tone of legitimate authority, touched sometimes with humorous compassion, she exacted obedience to her directions, but was well aware that at any moment the burden of a new civilisation might prove too heavy for the Turpin family and cause revolt. A week went by; it was again Saturday, and Miss Rodney devoted a part of the morning (there being no school to-day) to culinary instruction. ”

“ I shake with delight—and what women one does meet, nowadays! Of course the world never saw their like. I have my idea of Aspasia—but there are lots of grander women in London to-day. One ought to live among the rich. What a wretched mistake, when one can help it, to herd with narrow foreheads, however laudable your motive! Since I got back among the better people my life has been trebled—oh, centupled—in value!'
'My boy,' remarked Munden quietly, 'didn't I say something to this effect on a certain day nine years ago?'
'Don't talk of it,' the other replied, waving his hand in agitation. ”

“ Is this how you repay me for all the trouble I took to have you well educated, and to make you an honest man? Here I find you living in luxury and extravagance—and how? On stolen money—money as much stolen as if you were a pickpocket or a burglar! A pleasant thing for me to have all my friends talking about Charles Daffy, the bookmaker and the moneylender! ”

“ No more respectable man than Mr. Rymer; none more even-tempered, more easily pleased, more consistently polite and amiable. That he and his wife were very fond of each other appeared in all their talk and behaviour; both worshipped the children, and, in spite of that, trained them with a considerable measure of good sense. In the evenings Mr. Rymer sometimes read aloud, or he would talk instructively of the affairs of the day. The more Miss Shepperson saw of her friends the more she liked them. ”

“ No social stratum is probably quite so dull as he colours it. There is usually a streak of illusion or a flash of hope somewhere on the horizon. Hence a somewhat one-sided view of life, perfectly true as representing the grievance of the poet Cinna in the hands of the mob, but too severely monochrome for a serious indictment of a huge stratum of our common humanity. ”

“ Lott smote gently on his leg with the new riding-whip. He had been silent and meditative all the way hither.
A smart maidservant conducted them to the dining-room, and there, in a minute or two, they were joined by Mr. Charles. No one could have surmised from this gentleman's appearance that he was the son of the little tradesman who stood before him; nature had given the younger Mr. Daffy a tall and shapely person, and experience of life had refined his manners to an easy assurance he would never have learnt from paternal example. ”