George Gissing

“ Nothing in me, nothing, is akin to that gross world from which I have escaped!” So she thought—with every drop of her heart’s blood crying its source from that red fountain of revolt whereon never yet did the upper daylight gleam! Brain and pulses such as hers belong not to the mild breed of mortals fostered in sunshine. But for the stroke of fate, she might have won that reception which was in her dream, and with what self-mockery when experience had matured itself! Never yet did true rebel, who has burst the barriers of social limitation, find aught but ennui in the trim gardens beyond. ”

“ If I’d spent my life in the worst ways a man can, they couldn’t have turned out more worthless. Haven’t I wished always what was right and good and true? Haven’t I always spoke up for justice in the world? Haven’t I done what I could, Sidney, to be helpful to them as fell into misfortune? And now in my old age I’m only a burden, and the children as come after me are nothing but a misery to all as have to do with them. If it wasn’t for Clara I feel I couldn’t live my time out. She’s the one that pays me back for the love I’ve given her. ”

“ After a walk amid the squalid and toil-infested ways of Clerkenwell, it impresses one strangely to come upon this monument of old time. The archway has a sad, worn, grimy aspect. So closely is it packed in among buildings which suggest nothing but the sordid struggle for existence, that it looks depressed, ashamed, tainted by the ignobleness of its surroundings. The wonder is that it has not been swept away, in obedience to the great law of traffic and the spirit of the time.
St. John’s Arch had a place in Sidney Kirkwood’s earliest memories. ”

“ Over the pest-stricken regions of East London, sweltering in sunshine which served only to reveal the intimacies of abomination; across miles of a city of the damned, such as thought never conceived before this age of ours; above streets swarming with a nameless populace, cruelly exposed by the unwonted light of heaven; stopping at stations which it crushes the heart to think should be the destination of any mortal; the train made its way at length beyond the outmost limits of dread, and entered upon a land of level meadows, of hedges and trees, of crops and cattle. ”

“ If it’s a sacrifice, you’re strong enough to face it; yes, yes, strong enough to face more than this, my Jane is! Only fix your thoughts on the work you’re going to do. It’ll take up all your life, Jane, won’t it? You’ll have no time to give to such things as occupy other women—no mind for them.’
His grey eyes searched her countenance with that horrible intensity of fanaticism which is so like the look of cruelty, of greed, of any passion originating in the baser self. ”

“ How unlike the shrill discord whereby the ordinary work-girl expresses her foolish mirth! For years Sidney Kirkwood had been unused to utter any sound of merriment; even his smiling was done sadly. But of late he had grown conscious of the element of joy in Jane’s character, had accustomed himself to look for its manifestations—to observe the brightening of her eyes which foretold a smile, the moving of her lips which suggested inward laughter—and he knew that herein, as in many another matter, a profound sympathy was transforming him. ”

“ For an instant, whilst Sidney was still speaking, she caught a gleam of hope in renunciation itself, the kind of strength which idealism is fond of attributing to noble natures. A gleam only, and deceptive; she knew it too well after the day spent by her grandfather’s side, encouraging, at the expense of her heart’s blood, all his revived faith in her. But she would not again give way. The old man should reap fruit of her gratitude, and Sidney should never suspect how nearly she had proved herself unworthy of his high opinion. ”

“ Jane, I assure you, had thought very little of herself hitherto—in both senses of the phrase. Joyous because she could not help it, full of gratitude, admiration, generosity, she occupied her thoughts very much with other people, but knew not self-seeking, knew not self-esteem. The one thing affecting herself over which she mused frequently was her suffering as a little thrall in Clerkenwell Close, and the result was to make her very humble. She had been an ill-used, ragged, work-worn child, and something of that degradation seemed, in her feeling, still to cling to her. ”

“ I am a man in love, and in proportion as my love has strengthened, so has my old artist-self revived in me, until now I can imagine no bliss so perfect as to marry Jane Snowdon and go off to live with her amid fields and trees, where no echo of the suffering world should ever reach us. ”

“ Midway in the Sunday morning Amy told him that Clara had risen and would like him to go and sit with her. She would not leave her room; Amy had put it in order, and the blind was drawn low. Clara sat by the fireside, in her attitude of last night, hiding her face as far as she was able. The beauty of her form would have impressed any one who approached her, the grace of her bent head; but the countenance was no longer that of Clara Hewett; none must now look at her, unless to pity. ”

“ At such a door, midway in the sultry afternoon, John Hewett paused. To look at his stooping shoulders, his uncertain swaying this way and that, his flushed, perspiring face, you might have taken him for one who had already been drinking. No; it was only a struggle between his despairing wretchedness and a lifelong habit of mind. Not difficult to foresee which would prevail; the public-house always has its doors open in expectation of such instances. With a gesture which made him yet more like a drunken man he turned from the pavement and entered. ”

“ I was going to speak of Jane. Since she has been living with you she has grown from a child to a woman. When I was talking with her in the garden on Saturday night I felt this change more distinctly than I had ever done before. I understood that it had made a change in myself. I love her, Mr. Snowdon, and it’s my dearest hope that she may come to feel the same for me.’
Michael was more agitated than the speaker; he raised a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes as if the light pained them. But the smile with which he speedily answered Sidney’s look of trouble was full of reassurance. ”

“ His language was as general as were the ideas of beneficent activity which he desired to embody in Jane’s future; but instead of inspiring her with his own zeal, he afflicted her with grievous spiritual trouble. For a time she could only feel that something great and hard and high was suddenly required of her; the old man’s look seemed to keep repeating, ‘Are you worthy?’ The tremor of bygone days came back upon her as she listened, the anguish of timidity, the heart sinking, with which she had been wont to strain her attention when Mrs. Peckover or Clem imposed a harsh task. ”

“ But his face was against him; the worn, sallow features, the eyes which so obviously made a struggle to look with frankness, the vicious lower lip, awoke suspicion and told tales of base experience such as leaves its stamp upon a man for ever. All the more repugnant was this face to Sidney because it presented, in certain aspects, an undeniable resemblance to Jane’s; impossible to say which feature put forth this claim of kindred, but the impression was there, and it made Sidney turn away his eyes in disgust as often as he perceived it. ”

“ John Hewett would have nothing to do with an alliance so disreputable; Mrs. Hewett had in vain besought her stepson not to marry so unworthily. Even as a young man of good birth has been known to enjoy a subtle self-flattery in the thought that he graciously bestows his name upon a maiden who, to all intents and purposes, may be said never to have been born at all, so did Bob Hewett feel when he put a ring upon the scrubby finger of Pennyloaf. Proudly conscious was Bob that he had ‘married beneath him’—conscious also that Clem Peckover was gnawing her lips in rage. ”

“ The communication of a noble idea has the same effect upon the brains of certain men—of one, let us say, in every hundred thousand—as a wine that exalts and enraptures. As Sidney listened to the old man telling of his wondrous vision, he became possessed with ardour such as he had known but once or twice in his life. Idealism such as Michael Snowdon had developed in these latter years is a form of genius; given the susceptible hearer, it dazzles, inspires, raises to heroic contempt of the facts of life. ”

“ You remember one evening not long ago, when your grandfather was away? I had the same wish then. Why shouldn’t we speak of her? She was a friend to you when you needed one badly, and it’s right that you should remember her with gratitude. I think of her just like we do of people that are dead.”
Jane stood with one hand on the low wall, half-turned to him, but her face bent downwards. Regarding her for what seemed a long time, Sidney felt as though the fragrance of the earth and the flowers were mingling with his blood and confusing him with emotions. ”

“ Speak to Clara of renunciation, of saintly glories, of the stony way of perfectness, and you addressed her in an unknown tongue; nothing in her responded to these ideas. Hopelessly defeated in the one way of aspiration which promised a large life, her being, rebellious against the martyrdom it had suffered, went forth eagerly towards the only happiness which was any longer attainable. Her beauty was a dead thing; never by that means could she command homage. But there is love, ay, and passionate love, which can be independent of mere charm of face. In one man only could she hope to inspire it ”

“ But understand, Clara, my girl! It's because Sidney persuaded me. Sidney answers for it, mind you that!"
His voice trembled, and he looked at the young man with something like anger in his eyes.
"I'm willing to do that, Mr. Hewett," said Kirkwood in a low but firm voice, his eyes turned away from Clara. "No human being can answer for another in the real meaning of the word; but I take upon myself to say that Clara will bring you no sorrow. She hears me say it. They're not the kind of words that a man speaks without thought of what they mean." ”

“ Scawthorne was passing out of the stage when a man seeks only the gratification of his propensities; he began to focus his outlook upon the world, and to feel the significance of maturity. The double existence he was compelled to lead—that of a laborious and clear-brained man of business in office hours, that of a hungry rascal in the time which was his own—not only impressed him with a sense of danger, but made him profoundly dissatisfied with the unreality of what he called his enjoyments. ”

“ JANE IS VISITED.
At ten o’clock next morning Mrs. Peckover reached home. She was a tall, big-boned woman of fifty, with an arm like a coal-heaver’s. She had dark hair, which shone and was odorous with unguents; a sallow, uncomely face, and a handsome moustache. Her countenance was more difficult to read than Clem’s; a coarse, and most likely brutal, nature was plain enough in its lines, but there was also a suggestion of self-restraint, of sagacity, at all events of cunning, qualities which were decidedly not inherited by her daughter. ”