Barchester Towers quotes

He tried to keep his mind away from the subject, but he could not.

The race was so very close, and the stakes were so very high.

He then looked at the dying man’s impassive, placid face. There was no sign there of death or disease; it was something thinner than of yore, somewhat grayer, and the deep lines of age more marked;

Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate.

If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain the aspirations of a man.

Our archdeacon was worldly—who among us is not so? He was ambitious—who among us is ashamed to own that “last infirmity of noble minds!” He was avaricious, my readers will say.

The wisdom of this scheme was testified by the number of letters which “Common Sense,” “Veritas,” and “One that loves fair play” sent to The Jupiter, all expressing admiration and amplifying on the details given.

It is singular enough that no adverse letter appeared at all, and, therefore, none of course was written.

But Cassandra was not believed, and even the wisdom of The Jupiter sometimes falls on deaf ears.

And thus the widow’s deep grief was softened, and a sweet balm was poured into the wound which she had thought nothing but death could heal.

How much kinder is God to us than we are willing to be to ourselves!

At the loss of every dear face, at the last going of every well-beloved one, we all doom ourselves to an eternity of sorrow, and look to waste ourselves away in an ever-running fountain of tears. How seldom does such grief endure!

He understood well the value of forms, and knew that the due observance of rank could not be maintained unless the exterior trappings belonging to it were held in proper esteem.

He was a man born to move in high circles; at least so he thought himself, and circumstances had certainly sustained him in this view.

He was the nephew of an Irish baron by his mother’s side, and his wife was the niece of a Scotch earl.

Proudie is a good-looking man; spruce and dapper, and very tidy. He is somewhat below middle height, being about five feet four; but he makes up for the inches which he wants by the dignity with which he carries those which he has.

It is no fault of his own if he has not a commanding eye, for he studies hard to assume it.

His features are well formed, though perhaps the sharpness of his nose may give to his face in the eyes of some people an air of insignificance. If so, it is greatly redeemed by his mouth and chin, of which he is justly proud.

it may be that she will insist on his close attendance to his own closet. He has never whispered a word on the subject to living ears, but he has already made his fixed resolve. Should such attempt be made he will rebel.

Dogs have turned against their masters, and even Neapolitans against their rulers, when oppression has been too severe.

And Dr. Proudie feels within himself that if the cord be drawn too tight, he also can muster courage and resist.

“Thou shalt be damned in thy going in and in thy coming out—in thy eating and thy drinking,” etc. etc. etc. With the rich, experience has already taught him that a different line of action is necessary.

Men in the upper walks of life do not mind being cursed, and the women, presuming that it be done in delicate phrase, rather like it.

But he has not, therefore, given up so important a portion of believing Christians. With the men, indeed, he is generally at variance; they are hardened sinners, on whom the voice of the priestly charmer too often falls in vain;

Harding confessed that such was the humble sphere of his work. “Some parish duty as well,” suggested Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding acknowledged the diminutive incumbency of St. Cuthbert’s. Mr. Slope then left him alone, having condescended sufficiently, and joined the conversation among the higher powers.

There were four persons there, each of whom considered himself the most important personage in the diocese⁠—himself, indeed, or herself, as Mrs. Proudie was one of them⁠—and with such a difference of opinion it was not probable that they would get on pleasantly together.

The bishop himself actually wore the visible apron, and trusted mainly to that—to that and his title, both being facts which could not be overlooked.

Indeed, it may be doubted whether Mr. Slope had not already within his breast a better prepared system of strategy, a more accurately defined line of hostile conduct than the archdeacon.

Dr. Grantly was going to fight because he found that he hated the man. Mr. Slope had predetermined to hate the man because he foresaw the necessity of fighting him.

When he had first reviewed the carte du pays previous to his entry into Barchester, the idea had occurred to him of conciliating the archdeacon, of cajoling and flattering him into submission, and of obtaining the upper hand by cunning instead of courage.

They had to sit through it! None of them, not even Dr. Grantly, could close his ears, nor leave the house of God during the hours of service. They were under an obligation of listening, and that too without any immediate power of reply.

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons.

No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented.

We are all too fond of our own voices, and a preacher is encouraged in the vanity of making his heard by the privilege of a compelled audience.

His sermon is the pleasant morsel of his life, his delicious moment of self-exaltation.

“I have preached nine sermons this week,” said a young friend to me the other day, with hand languidly raised to his brow, the picture of an overburdened martyr. “Nine this week, seven last week, four the week before.

Some other Jupiter, some other Mr. Slope, would come and turn him out of St. Cuthbert’s. Surely he could not have been wrong all his life in chanting the litany as he had done! He began, however, to have his doubts.

Doubting himself was Mr. Harding’s weakness. It is not, however, the usual fault of his order.

Yes! All Barchester was in a tumult. It was not only the clergy who were affected. The laity also had listened to Mr.

the poor had not been ground down; the clergy in society had neither been overbearing nor austere; and the whole repute of the city was due to its ecclesiastical importance. Yet there were those who had heard Mr. Slope with satisfaction.

It is so pleasant to receive a fillip of excitement when suffering from the dull routine of everyday life!

The anthems and Te Deums were in themselves delightful, but they had been heard so often! Mr. Slope was certainly not delightful, but he was new, and, moreover, clever.

“It can hardly be the duty of a young man rudely to assail the religious convictions of his elders in the church.

Courtesy should have kept him silent, even if neither charity nor modesty could do so.

”

Their conduct to each other was the same as to the world; they bore and forbore; and there was sometimes, as will be seen, much necessity for forbearing; but their love among themselves rarely reached above this.

It is astonishing how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to prevent the well-being of the other four.

For there were five in all; the doctor, namely, and Mrs. Stanhope, two daughters, and one son. The doctor, perhaps, was the least singular and most estimable of them all, and yet such good qualities as he possessed were all negative.

His reading seldom went beyond romances and poetry of the lightest and not always most moral description. He was thoroughly a bon vivant; an accomplished judge of wine, though he never drank to excess; and a most inexorable critic in all affairs touching the kitchen.

He had had much to forgive in his own family, since a family had grown up around him, and had forgiven everything⁠—except inattention to his dinner.

His weakness in that respect was now fully understood, and his temper but seldom tried. As Dr. Stanhope was a clergyman, it may be supposed that his religious convictions made up a considerable part of his character, but this was not so.

She was rich in apparel but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though worn with that purpose.

She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct a decoration.

But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose in life she had none. It was something, indeed, that she did not interfere with the purposes of others.

She neither dressed young, nor talked young, nor indeed looked young. She appeared to be perfectly content with her time of life, and in no way affected the graces of youth.

She was a fine young woman, and had she been a man, would have been a very fine young man.

All that was done in the house, and that was not done by servants, was done by her. She gave the orders, paid the bills, hired and dismissed the domestics, made the tea, carved the meat, and managed everything in the Stanhope household.

There was no question as to readmitting the poor, ill-used beauty to her old family rights, no question as to adopting her infant daughter beneath the Stanhope rooftree.

Though heartless, the Stanhopes were not selfish.

The two were taken in, petted, made much of, for a time all but adored, and then felt by the two parents to be great nuisances in the house.

His circle of acquaintance was very large and embraced people of all sorts. He had no respect for rank, and no aversion to those below him. He had lived on familiar terms with English peers, German shopkeepers, and Roman priests.

All people were nearly alike to him. He was above, or rather below, all prejudices.

No virtue could charm him, no vice shock him. He had about him a natural good manner, which seemed to qualify him for the highest circles, and yet he was never out of place in the lowest.

He had no respect for rank, and no aversion to those below him. He had lived on familiar terms with English peers, German shopkeepers, and Roman priests. All people were nearly alike to him. He was above, or rather below, all prejudices.

No virtue could charm him, no vice shock him.

He had about him a natural good manner, which seemed to qualify him for the highest circles, and yet he was never out of place in the lowest.

Mrs. Proudie had at first declared that she would condescend to nothing so vulgar as eating and drinking, but Mr. Slope had talked, or rather written her out of economy.

Bishops should be given to hospitality, and hospitality meant eating and drinking.

So the supper was conceded; the guests, however, were to stand as they consumed it.

Mrs. Proudie’s heart beat high as she inspected her suite of rooms. They were really very magnificent, or at least would be so by candlelight, and they had nevertheless been got up with commendable economy.

Large rooms when full of people and full of light look well, because they are large, and are full, and are light.

Small rooms are those which require costly fittings and rich furniture. Mrs. Proudie knew this, and made the most of it; she had therefore a huge gas lamp with a dozen burners hanging from each of the ceilings.

and Charlotte Stanhope followed to see that all was done with due grace and decorum. In this manner they climbed easily into the drawing-room, and a broad way through the crowd having been opened, the signora rested safely on her couch.

She had sent a servant beforehand to learn whether it was a right- or a left-hand sofa, for it required that she should dress accordingly, particularly as regarded her bracelets.

And very becoming her dress was. It was white velvet, without any other garniture than rich white lace worked with pearls across her bosom, and the same round the armlets of her dress.

“My brother is so thoughtless. Pray sit down, and let me have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. Though I am so poor a creature as to want a sofa, I am not so selfish as to require it all.”

Madeline could always dispose herself so as to make room for a gentleman, though, as she declared, the crinoline of her lady friends was much too bulky to be so accommodated.

“It was solely for the pleasure of meeting you that I have had myself dragged here,” she continued. “Of course, with your occupation, one cannot even hope that you should have time to come to us, that is, in the way of calling.

“New men are carrying out new measures and are carting away the useless rubbish of past centuries!” What cruel words these had been; and how often are they now used with all the heartless cruelty of a Slope!

A man is sufficiently condemned if it can only be shown that either in politics or religion he does not belong to some new school established within the last score of years.

He may then regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away.

A man is sufficiently condemned if it can only be shown that either in politics or religion he does not belong to some new school established within the last score of years. He may then regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away.

A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit.

We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart.

nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, and write up to it too, if that cacoethes be upon us, or else we are nought.

New men and new measures, long credit and few scruples, great success or wonderful ruin, such are now the tastes of Englishmen who know how to live.

Alas, alas! Under such circumstances Mr. Harding could not but feel that he was an Englishman who did not know how to live. This new doctrine of Mr. Slope and the rubbish cart, new at least at Barchester, sadly disturbed his equanimity.

And such repentance itself, is it not a work of agony and of tears?

It is very easy to talk of repentance, but a man has to walk over hot ploughshares before he can complete it; to be skinned alive as was St. Bartholomew; to be stuck full of arrows as was St. Sebastian; to lie broiling on a gridiron like St. Lorenzo!

How if his past life required such repentance as this? Had he the energy to go through with it?

“

If honest men did not squabble for money, in this wicked world of ours, the dishonest men would get it all, and I do not see that the cause of virtue would be much improved.

No—we must use the means which we have.

“That’s what I often think myself,” said he, not in the least offended. “

Some men have a great gift of making money, but they can’t spend it. Others can’t put two shillings together, but they have a great talent for all sorts of outlay.

I begin to think that my genius is wholly in the latter line.”

“It’s very hard in a country like England, for a young woman to set herself in opposition to prejudices of that sort,” said the prudent Charlotte.

“What you mean is that it’s very hard for a fool not to be a fool,” said Madeline.

Bertie Stanhope had been so much knocked about the world from his earliest years that he had not retained much respect for the gravity of English customs;

“I mean very much the same thing—that any man who is willing to sacrifice his interest to get possession of a pretty face is a fool.

Pretty faces are to be had cheaper than that.

I hate your mawkish sentimentality, Lotte. You know as well as I do in what way husbands and wives generally live together;

you know what freedom a man claims for himself, what slavery he would exact from his wife if he could! And you know also how wives generally obey.

Marriage means tyranny on one side and deceit on the other.

I say that a man is a fool to sacrifice his interests for such a bargain. A woman, too generally, has no other way of living.”

And is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance?

And what can be the worth of that solicitude which a peep into the third volume can utterly dissipate?

What the value of those literary charms which are absolutely destroyed by their enjoyment? When we have once learnt what was that picture before which was hung Mrs. Ratcliffe’s solemn curtain, we feel no further interest about either the frame or the veil.

Nay, take the third volume if you please—learn from the last pages all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose.

Our doctrine is that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other.

Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake the Syracusan for the Ephesian; otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified.

… was a quiet, enduring, grateful sweetness about her face which grew so strongly upon those who knew her, as to make the great praise of her beauty which came from her old friends appear marvellously exaggerated to those who were only slightly acquainted with her.

Her loveliness was like that of many landscapes, which require to be often seen to be fully enjoyed.

There was a depth of dark clear brightness in her eyes which was lost upon a quick observer, a character about her mouth which only showed itself to those with whom she familiarly conversed, a glorious form of head the perfect symmetry of which required …

How can he who deserts his own colours at the first smell of gunpowder expect faith in any ally? Thou thyself hast sought the battlefield: fight out the battle manfully now thou art there. Courage, Bishop, courage!

Frowns cannot kill, nor can sharp words break any bones.

After all, the apron is thine own. She can appoint no wardens, give away no benefices, nominate no chaplains, an’ thou art but true to thyself. Up, man, and at her with a constant heart.

As to Bertie, one would have imagined from the sound of his voice and the gleam of his eye that he had not a sorrow nor a care in the world. Nor had he. He was incapable of anticipating tomorrow’s griefs.

The prospect of future want no more disturbed his appetite than does that of the butcher’s knife disturb the appetite of the sheep.

Such was the usual tenor of their way; but there were rare exceptions. Occasionally the father would allow an angry glance to fall from his eye, and the lion would send forth a low dangerous roar as though he meditated some deed of blood.

“What a condition,” said the doctor, “for the son of a clergyman of the Church of England.”

“I don’t see why clergymen’s sons should pay their debts more than other young men,” said Charlotte.

“He’s had as much from me since he left school as is held sufficient for the eldest son of many a nobleman,” said the angry father.

It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws.

Like other tame cats, however, he had his claws, and sometimes made them dangerous.

When tea was over, Charlotte went to the open window and declared loudly that the full harvest moon was much too beautiful to be disregarded, and called them all to look at it.

He is worthy of a new volume, and as he will fill a conspicuous place in it, it is desirable that he should be made to stand before the reader’s eye by the aid of such portraiture as the author is able to produce.

It is to be regretted that no mental method of daguerreotype or photography has yet been discovered by which the characters of men can be reduced to writing and put into grammatical language with an unerring precision of truthful description.

How often does the novelist feel, ay, and the historian also and the biographer, that he has conceived within his mind and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless, when he flies to …

Let biographers, novelists, and the rest of us groan as we may under the burdens which we so often feel too heavy for our shoulders; we must either bear them up like men, or own ourselves too weak for the work we have undertaken.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

Labor omnia vincit improbus. Such should be the chosen motto of every labourer, and it may be that labour, if adequately enduring, may suffice at last to produce even some not untrue resemblance of the Rev. Francis Arabin.

To say that his object was ever to raise a laugh would be most untrue. He hated such common and unnecessary evidence of satisfaction on the part of his hearers.

A joke that required to be laughed at was, with him, not worth uttering.

He could appreciate by a keener sense than that of his ears the success of his wit, and would see in the eyes of his auditors whether or no he was understood and appreciated.

… others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.

It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned, and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest friends shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues.

It did not occur to Mr. Arabin that he was spoken of at all. It seemed to him, when he compared himself with his host, that he was a person of so little consequence to any, that he was worth no one’s words or thoughts.

It has been said that Mr. Arabin was a man of pleasantry, and it may be thought that such a state of mind as that described would be antagonistic to humour. But surely such is not the case.

Wit is the outward mental casing of the man, and has no more to do with the inner mind of thoughts and feelings than have the rich brocaded garments of the priest at the altar with the asceticism of the anchorite below them, whose skin is tormented with sackcloth and whose body is half-flayed with rods.

Nay, will not such a one often rejoice more than any other in the rich show of his outer apparel? Will it not be food for his pride to feel that he groans inwardly while he shines outwardly?

“Wars about trifles,” said he, “are always bitter, especially among neighbours. When the differences are great, and the parties comparative strangers, men quarrel with courtesy.

What combatants are ever so eager as two brothers?

”

“No,” said he, “not necessarily of the Church of Rome; but of a church with a head. Had it pleased God to vouchsafe to us such a church our path would have been easy.

But easy paths have not been thought good for us.

” He paused and stood silent for awhile, thinking of the time when he had so nearly sacrificed all he had, his powers of mind, his free agency, the fresh running waters of his mind’s fountain, his very inner self, for an easy path in …

You, when you condemn this foreign treaty, or that official arrangement, will have to incur no blame for the graver faults of any different measure.

It is so easy to condemn⁠—and so pleasant too, for eulogy charms no listeners as detraction does.

”

It may be imagined, therefore, that with all her little follies she was not unpopular. All her follies have, we believe, been told.

Her virtues were too numerous to describe, and not sufficiently interesting to deserve description.

While we are on the subject of the Thornes, one word must be said of the house they lived in.

Thorne’s father. This hearth had of course been intended for the consumption of wood faggots, and the iron dogs for the purpose were still standing, though half-buried in the masonry of the grate. Miss Thorne was very anxious to revert to the dogs.

The dear good old creature was always glad to revert to anything, and had she been systematically indulged, would doubtless in time have reflected that fingers were made before forks and have reverted accordingly.

But in the affairs of the fireplace Mr. Thorne would not revert. Country gentlemen around him all had comfortable grates in their dining-rooms.

Strike the wall with your hand, and you will think that the stone has on it no covering, but rub it carefully, and you will find that the colour comes off upon your finger.

No colourist that ever yet worked from a palette has been able to come up to this rich colouring of years crowding themselves on years.

Ullathorne is a high building for a country-house, for it possesses three stories, and in each story the windows are of the same sort as that described, though varying in size and varying also in their lines athwart the house.

But this forbearance on the part of youth would be much more appreciated if it were extended likewise to sermons. The only danger would be that congregations would be too anxious to prevent their young clergymen from advancing themselves in the ranks of the ministry.

Clergymen who could not preach would be such blessings that they would be bribed to adhere to their incompetence.

Mr. Arabin, however, had not the modesty of youth to impede him, and he succeeded with his sermon even better than with the lessons. He took for his text two verses out of the second epistle of St.

But Eleanor was not in love with him.

How many shades there are between love and indifference, and how little the graduated scale is understood!

She had now been nearly three weeks in the same house with Mr. Arabin, and had received much of his attention and listened daily to his conversation. He had usually devoted at least some portion of his evening to her exclusively. At Dr.

It was, after all, but a small cap now, and had but little of the weeping willow left in its construction.

It is singular how these emblems of grief fade away by unseen gradations.

Each pretends to be the counterpart of the forerunner, and yet the last little bit of crimped white crape that sits so jauntily on the back of the head is as dissimilar to the first huge mountain of woe which disfigured the face of the …

Harding growling in opposition and disappointment under the archdeacon’s wing at Plumstead. Moreover, to give Mr. Slope due credit, he was actuated by greater motives even than these.

He wanted a wife, and he wanted money, but he wanted power more than either.

He had fully realized the fact that he must come to blows with Mrs. Proudie. He had no desire to remain in Barchester as her chaplain. Sooner than do so, he would risk the loss of his whole connection with the diocese. What!

He was not careful, as another might be who sat on an easier worldly seat, to stand well with those around him, to shun a breath which might sully his name or a rumour which might affect his honour.

He could not afford such niceties of conduct, such moral luxuries.

It must suffice for him to be ordinarily honest according to the ordinary honesty of the world’s ways, and to let men’s tongues wag as they would.

Quiverful of rapacity for promotion and of disregard to his honour, the inner world of his own household was falling foul of him, with equal vehemence, for his willingness to sacrifice their interests to a false feeling of sentimental pride.

It is astonishing how much difference the point of view makes in the aspect of all that we look at!

Such were the feelings of the different members of the family at Puddingdale on the occasion of Mr. Slope’s second visit. Mrs.

But now the difficulty of her situation touched her a little. She had been at the palace once before, but then she went to give grateful thanks.

Those who have thanks to return for favours received find easy admittance to the halls of the great.

Such is not always the case with men, or even with women, who have favours to beg. Still less easy is access for those who demand the fulfilment of promises already made.

The lady, without any beating about the bush, made the bishop understand that she wouldn’t hear of it. It would be useless here to repeat the arguments that were used on each side, and needless to record the result.

Those who are married will understand very well how the battle was lost and won, and those who are single will never understand it till they learn the lesson which experience alone can give.

When Mrs. Quiverful was shown into Mrs. Proudie’s room, that lady had only returned a few minutes from her lord. But before she left him she had seen the answer to the archbishop’s note written and sealed.

That was all. There was nothing more necessary. He had gone to the battlefield, stood the dust and heat of the day, encountered the fury of the foe, and won the victory.

How easy is success to those who will only be true to themselves!

Mr. Slope saw at once the full amount of his gain, and turned on the vanquished lady a look of triumph which she never forgot and never forgave. Here he was wrong.

If it be considered that this rule is obeyed in these pages, the latter character must be supposed to have fallen to the lot of Mrs. Proudie. But she was not all devil.

There was a heart inside that stiff-ribbed bodice, though not, perhaps, of large dimensions, and certainly not easily accessible.

Mrs. Quiverful, however, did gain access, and Mrs. Proudie proved herself a woman.

Indeed, it was hard to say which was the old love and which the new, Mr. Slope having been smitten with both so nearly at the same time. Perhaps he thought it not amiss to have two strings to his bow.

But two strings to Cupid’s bow are always dangerous to him on whose behalf they are to be used.

A man should remember that between two stools he may fall to the ground.

Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle, and then she could not bear the loss of her lover. So she fell between two stools.

Mr. Slope, whatever you do, never mingle love and business.

”

Imogen was true, but how was she rewarded? Her lord believed her to be the paramour of the first he who came near her in his absence. Desdemona was true and was smothered. Ophelia was true and went mad.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

But in wealth, money, houses, lands, goods, and chattels, in the good things of this world, yes, in them there is something tangible, something that can be retained and enjoyed.”

So does the Eastern fanatic who passes half his life erect upon a pillar. As for me, I will believe in no belief that does not make itself manifest by outward signs.

I will think no preaching sincere that is not recommended by the practice of the preacher.

”

“

I told you to look at me boldly, Mr. Slope, but confine your boldness to your eyes.

”

All this passed through his mind. As far as dead knowledge went, he knew, or thought he knew, how a woman should be tamed. But when he essayed to bring his tactics to bear, he failed like a child.

What chance has dead knowledge with experience in any of the transactions between man and man? What possible chance between man and woman?

Mr. Slope loved furiously, insanely and truly, but he had never played the game of love. The signora did not love at all, but she was up to every move of the board. It was Philidor pitted against a schoolboy.

Harding. His feelings towards his friends were that while they stuck to him, he would stick to them; that he would work with them shoulder and shoulder; that he would be faithful to the faithful.

He knew nothing of that beautiful love which can be true to a false friend.

And thus these two men, each miserable enough in his own way, returned to Plumstead.

It was impossible that Mr. Slope should so write unless he had been encouraged. It was impossible Eleanor should have received such a letter, and have received it without annoyance, unless she were willing to encourage him. So at least Mr. Harding argued to himself.

How hard it is to judge accurately of the feelings of others.

Mr. Harding, as he came to the close of the letter, in his heart condemned his daughter for indelicacy, and it made him miserable to do so. She was not responsible for what Mr. Slope might write. True.

Mr. Arabin had heard from his friend of the probability of Eleanor’s marriage with Mr. Slope with amazement, but not with incredulity. It has been said that he was not in love with Eleanor, and up to this period this certainly had been true.

But as soon as he heard that she loved someone else, he began to be very fond of her himself.

He did not make up his mind that he wished to have her for his wife; he had never thought of her, and did not now think of her, in connection with himself;

“It is a pity, certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,” said she, interrupting him. “

It is a pity that there should be so little charity abroad.

”

she had not expressly said that it was untrue. Mr. Arabin understood little of the nature of a woman’s feelings, or he would have known how improbable it was that she should make any clearer declaration than she had done.

Few men do understand the nature of a woman’s heart, till years have robbed such understanding of its value.

And it is well that it should be so, or men would triumph too easily.

He came down the following morning a sad and thoughtful man. He was attenuated in appearance—one might almost say emaciated. I doubt whether his now grizzled locks had not palpably become more grey than on the preceding evening. At any rate he had aged materially.

Years do not make a man old gradually and at an even pace.

Look through the world and see if this is not so always, except in those rare cases in which the human being lives and dies without joys and without sorrows, like a vegetable.

Let it, however, be asked of those who are conversant with such matters, whether he was more false than men usually are on such occasions.

We English gentlemen hate the name of a lie, but how often do we find public men who believe each other’s words?

She had not conceived the possibility of her doing such things as she now did. She found with the Stanhopes new amusements and employments, new pursuits, which in themselves could not be wrong, and which were exceedingly alluring.

Is it not a pity that people who are bright and clever should so often be exceedingly improper, and that those who are never improper should so often be dull and heavy?

Now Charlotte Stanhope was always bright and never heavy, but then her propriety was doubtful.

He then asked himself whether he did not also love her money, and he again answered himself that he did so. But here he did not answer honestly.

It was and ever had been his weakness to look for impure motives for his own conduct.

No doubt, circumstanced as he was, with a small living and a fellowship, accustomed as he had been to collegiate luxuries and expensive comforts, he might have hesitated to marry a penniless woman had he felt ever so strong a predilection for the woman herself;

He also decided, which was more to his purpose, that Eleanor did not care a straw for him, and that very probably she did care a straw for his rival.

Then he made up his mind not to think of her any more, and went on thinking of her till he was almost in a state to drown himself in the little brook which ran at the bottom of the archdeacon’s grounds.

And ever and again his mind would revert to the Signora Neroni, and he would make comparisons between her and Eleanor Bold, not always in favour of the latter. The signora had listened to him, and flattered him, and believed in him;

Could gentlemen of £10,000 a year have died on their own doorsteps in defence of protection, no doubt some half-dozen glorious old baronets would have so fallen, and the school of protection would at this day have been crowded with scholars.

Who can fight strenuously in any combat in which there is no danger?

Tom Staple would have willingly been impaled before a Committee of the House, could he by such self-sacrifice have infused his own spirit into the component members of the hebdomadal board.

If you bind him with leading-strings at college, he will break loose while eating for the bar in London; bind him there, and he will break loose afterwards, when he is a married man.

The wild oats must be sown somewhere.

’Twas thus that Tom Staple would argue of young men, not, indeed, with much consistency, but still with some practical knowledge of the subject gathered from long experience.

“Everything has gone by, I believe,” said Tom Staple. “

The cigar has been smoked out, and we are the ashes.

”

To this the unthinking will give an offhand answer, as they will to every ponderous question. Oh, the bishop and suchlike within the ha-ha, and Farmer Greenacre and suchlike without. True, my unthinking friend, but who shall define these suchlikes?

It is in such definitions that the whole difficulty of society consists.

To seat the bishop on an armchair on the lawn and place Farmer Greenacre at the end of a long table in the paddock is easy enough, but where will you put Mrs.

The trouble in civilized life of entertaining company, as it is called too generally without much regard to strict veracity, is so great that it cannot but be matter of wonder that people are so fond of attempting it.

It is difficult to ascertain what is the quid pro quo. If they who give such laborious parties, and who endure such toil and turmoil in the vain hope of giving them successfully, really enjoyed the parties given by others, the matter could be understood.

But beyond these, success in this art of entertaining is not often achieved. Young men and girls linking themselves kind with kind, pairing like birds in spring because nature wills it, they, after a simple fashion, do entertain each other. Few others even try.

Ladies, when they open their houses, modestly confessing, it may be presumed, their own incapacity, mainly trust to wax candles and upholstery. Gentlemen seem to rely on their white waistcoats.

To these are added, for the delight of the more sensual, champagne and such good things of the table as fashion allows to be still considered as comestible. Even in this respect the world is deteriorating.

“Upon my word I don’t know,” said the Lady Margaretta, “for I was half-asleep. But I do know that I was called some time in the middle of the night and was dressing myself before daylight.”

Wise people, when they are in the wrong, always put themselves right by finding fault with the people against whom they have sinned.

Lady De Courcy was a wise woman, and therefore, having treated Miss Thorne very badly by staying away till three o’clock, she assumed the offensive and attacked Mr. Thorne’s roads. Her daughter, not less wise, attacked Miss Thorne’s early hours.

There is no withstanding it. Who can go systematically to work and, having done battle with the primary accusation and settled that, then bring forward a countercharge and support that also? Life is not long enough for such labours.

A man in the right relies easily on his rectitude and therefore goes about unarmed. His very strength is his weakness.

A man in the wrong knows that he must look to his weapons; his very weakness is his strength. The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready.

Life is not long enough for such labours. A man in the right relies easily on his rectitude and therefore goes about unarmed. His very strength is his weakness.

A man in the wrong knows that he must look to his weapons; his very weakness is his strength.

The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready. Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the wrong almost invariably conquers the man that is in the right, and invariably despises him.

The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready. Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the wrong almost invariably conquers the man that is in the right, and invariably despises him.

A man must be an idiot or else an angel who, after the age of forty, shall attempt to be just to his neighbours.

Many like the Lady Margaretta have learnt their lesson at a much earlier age. But this of course depends on the school in which they have been taught.

“

The heart of some woman whom you will be too austere to own that you love, and the respect of some few friends which you will be too proud to own that you value.

”

said she. “Do they not all sit wrapt as you now are, cutting imaginary silken cords with their fine edges, while those not so highly tempered sever the everyday Gordian knots of the world’s struggle and win wealth and renown?

Steel too highly polished, edges too sharp, do not do for this world’s work, Mr. Arabin.

”

“

The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.

And it is a mistake so opposed to the religion which you preach! Why does God permit his bishops one after another to have their five thousands and ten thousands a year if such wealth be bad and not worth having?

“

Come, come, Mr. Arabin, don’t let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.

Give me half a glass more champagne and then go to the table. Mrs. Bold will do me an injury if you stay talking to me any longer.”

“Well, if they likes it, and madam likes it, they’s welcome for me,” said the farmer. “Now I likes this place better, ’cause I be more at homelike, and don’t have to pay for them fine clothes for the missus.

Everyone to his taste, Mrs. Guffern, and if neighbour Lookaloft thinks that he has the best of it, he’s welcome.

”

“He worked long enough for me, then, Mr. Plomacy. And a good hand he is at setting tiles as any in Barchester,” said the other, not sticking quite to veracity, as indeed mercy never should. “

Come, come, let him alone today and quarrel with him tomorrow.

You wouldn’t shame him before his lass there?”

but the grounds were as nearly vacant as Mr. Slope could wish them to be.

Eleanor saw that she was pursued, and as a deer, when escape is no longer possible, will turn to bay and attack the hounds, so did she turn upon Mr. Slope.

“Pray don’t let me take you from the room,” said she, speaking with all the stiffness which she knew how to use. “I have come out to look for a friend. I must beg of you, Mr. Slope, to go back.”

Slope, that you could not have said when we were sitting at table just now;” and she closed her lips, and steadied her eyeballs, and looked at him in a manner that ought to have frozen him.

But gentlemen are not easily frozen when they are full of champagne, and it would not at any time have been easy to freeze Mr. Slope.

“There are things, Mrs. Bold, which a man cannot well say before a crowd; which perhaps he cannot well say at any time; which indeed he may most fervently desire to get spoken, and which he may yet find it almost impossible to utter.

He conceived himself lowered in his dignity and personally outraged. He could almost have struck at her again in his rage. Even the pain was a great annoyance to him, and the feeling that his clerical character had been wholly disregarded sorely vexed him.

There are such men: men who can endure no taint on their personal self-respect, even from a woman; men whose bodies are to themselves such sacred temples that a joke against them is desecration, and a rough touch downright sacrilege.

Mr. Slope was such a man, and therefore the slap on the face that he got from Eleanor was, as far as he was concerned, the fittest rebuke which could have been administered to him.

Was she to wait there till Mr. Slope caught her, or was she to go in among the crowd with tears in her eyes and passion in her face?

She might in truth have stood there long enough without any reasonable fear of further immediate persecution from Mr. Slope, but we are all inclined to magnify the bugbears which frighten us.

In her present state of dread she did not know of what atrocity he might venture to be guilty.

“What horrid man?” asked Charlotte.

There are some moments in life in which both men and women feel themselves imperatively called on to make a confidence, in which not to do so requires a disagreeable resolution and also a disagreeable suspicion.

There are people of both sexes who never make confidences, who are never tempted by momentary circumstances to disclose their secrets, but such are generally dull, close, unimpassioned spirits, “gloomy gnomes, who live in cold dark mines.”

This was wormwood to Eleanor. It was in fact the very thing which all her friends had been saying for the last month past—and which experience now proved to be true. Eleanor resolved within herself that she would never again take any man’s part.

The world, with all its villainy and all its ill-nature, might wag as it liked: she would not again attempt to set crooked things straight.

“But what did he do, my dear?” said Charlotte, who was really rather interested in the subject.

I had forgotten that you had returned.” And then Mr. Arabin, finding it impossible to say anything further, stood silent till Charlotte had completed her plans, and Mrs. Bold stood equally silent, intently occupied as it appeared in the arrangement of her rings.

And yet these two people were thoroughly in love with each other; and though one was a middle-aged clergyman, and the other a lady at any rate past the wishy-washy bread-and-butter period of life, they were as unable to tell their own minds to each other as any Damon and Phyllis, whose united ages would not make up that to which Mr. Arabin had already attained.

Madeline Neroni consented to her sister’s proposal, and then the two ladies again went off in quest of Bertie Stanhope.

Some young gentlemen had been heard to talk so loud that prudent mammas determined to retire judiciously, and the more discreet of the male sex, whose libations had been moderate, felt that there was not much more left for them to do.

Morning parties, as a rule, are failures. People never know how to get away from them gracefully.

A picnic on an island or a mountain or in a wood may perhaps be permitted. There is no master of the mountain bound by courtesy to bid you stay while in his heart he is longing for your departure.

… he did the marble workshops at Carrara, as he had done his easel and palette, as he had done the lawyer’s chambers in London—in fact, as he had invariably regarded everything by which it had been proposed to him to obtain the means of living.

Eleanor Bold appeared before him, no longer as a beautiful woman, but as a new profession called matrimony.

It was a profession indeed requiring but little labour, and one in which an income was insured to him. But nevertheless he had been as it were goaded on to it;

It has been said that Bertie Stanhope was a man without principle. He certainly was so. He had no power of using active mental exertion to keep himself from doing evil.

Evil had no ugliness in his eyes; virtue no beauty.

He was void of any of these feelings which actuate men to do good. But he was perhaps equally void of those which actuate men to do evil.

There was very little in the programme to allure such a man as Bertie Stanhope. Would not the Carrara workshop, or whatever worldly career fortune might have in store for him, would not almost anything be better than this?

The lady herself was undoubtedly all that was desirable, but the most desirable lady becomes nauseous when she has to be taken as a pill.

He was pledged to his sister, however, and let him quarrel with whom he would, it behoved him not to quarrel with her. If she were lost to him, all would be lost that he could ever hope to derive henceforward from the paternal rooftree.

“No real artist could descend to the ornamentation of a cathedral,” said Bertie, who had his ideas of the high ecstatic ambition of art, as indeed all artists have who are not in receipt of a good income. “

Buildings should be fitted to grace the sculpture, not the sculpture to grace the building.

”

’Tis thus that many live, and it therefore behoves all those who are well-to-do in the world to be on their guard against those who are not. With them it is the success that disgusts, not the attempt.

But Eleanor had not yet learnt to look on her money as a source of danger; she had not begun to regard herself as fair game to be hunted down by hungry gentlemen.

She had enjoyed the society of the Stanhopes, she had greatly liked the cordiality of Charlotte, and had been happy in her new friends. Now she saw the cause of all this kindness, and her mind was opened to a new phase of human life.

And when he got home, he had a glass of hot negus in his wife’s sitting-room, and read the last number of the Little Dorrit of the day with great inward satisfaction.

Oh, husbands, oh, my marital friends, what great comfort is there to be derived from a wife well obeyed!

Much perturbation and flutter, high expectation and renewed hopes, were occasioned at Puddingdale, by the receipt of these episcopal dispatches. Mrs.

“She’s stiff and hard and proud as piecrust, but I think she’s right at bottom.” Such was Mrs. Quiverful’s verdict about Mrs. Proudie, to which in after times she always adhered.

People when they get their income doubled usually think that those through whose instrumentality this little ceremony is performed are right at bottom.

“Oh, Letty!” said Mr. Quiverful, rising from his well-worn seat.

It is fervently to be hoped that it may.

Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower.

And then the pair, sitting down lovingly together, talked over all their difficulties, as they so often did, and all their hopes, as they so seldom were enabled to do.

“Oh, it’s the way of the world, my dear. They all do just the same.

You might just as well be angry with the turkey cock for gobbling at you. It’s the bird’s nature.

” And as she enunciated to her bairns the upshot of her practical experience, she pulled from her pocket the portions of tape which showed the length and breadth of the various rooms at the hospital house.

Mr. Slope had from his youth upwards been a firm believer in the public press. He had dabbled in it himself ever since he had taken his degree, and he regarded it as the great arranger and distributor of all future British terrestrial affairs whatever.

He had not yet arrived at the age, an age which sooner or later comes to most of us, which dissipates the golden dreams of youth.

He delighted in the idea of wresting power from the hands of his country’s magnates and placing it in a custody which was at any rate nearer to his own reach.

Poor Mrs. Bold, when she got home from Ullathorne on the evening of Miss Thorne’s party, was very unhappy and, moreover, very tired.

Nothing fatigues the body so much as weariness of spirit, and Eleanor’s spirit was indeed weary.

Dr. Stanhope had civilly but not very cordially asked her in to tea, and her manner of refusal convinced the worthy doctor that he need not repeat the invitation.

This kind of consolation from the world’s deceit is very common. Mothers obtain it from their children, and men from their dogs. Some men even do so from their walking-sticks, which is just as rational.

How is it that we can take joy to ourselves in that we are not deceived by those who have not attained the art to deceive us?

In a true man, if such can be found, or a true woman, much consolation may indeed be taken.

and then how had they intended to use her? She could hardly reconcile herself to her own father, who had believed ill of her. Mary Bold had turned Mentor.

That she could have forgiven had the Mentor turned out to be in the wrong, but Mentors in the right are not to be pardoned.

She could not but hate the archdeacon, and now she hated him worse than ever, for she must in some sort humble herself before him. She hated her sister, for she was part and parcel of the archdeacon. And she would have hated Mr.

She reechoed all the abuse that was heaped on Mr. Slope’s head and never hinted that she had said as much before.

“I told you so, I told you so!” is the croak of a true Job’s comforter.

But Mary, when she found her friend lying in her sorrow and scraping herself with potsherds, forbore to argue and to exult. Eleanor acknowledged the merit of the forbearance, and at length allowed herself to be tranquilised.

Stanhope’s, and how long he had remained on the occasion of each visit. He had asked after Mr. Arabin at the cathedral library, and an officious little vicar choral had offered to go and see whether he could be found at Dr. Stanhope’s.

Rumour, when she has contrived to sound the first note on her trumpet, soon makes a loud peal audible enough.

It was too clear that Mr. Arabin had succumbed to the Italian woman, and that the archdeacon’s credit would suffer fearfully if something were not done to rescue the brand from the burning.

“I know I cannot make you understand my feeling,” he said, “for we have been cast in different moulds. I may wish that I had your spirit and energy and power of combatting; but I have not.

Every day that is added to my life increases my wish for peace and rest.

”

Arabin, gently laughing. “That is an opinion on which very much may be said on either side. It is strange how widely the world is divided on a subject which so nearly concerns us all, and which is so close beneath our eyes.

Some think that we are quickly progressing towards perfection, while others imagine that virtue is disappearing from the earth.

”

“That is because you see more of it than when you were younger.

But we should hardly judge by what we see⁠—we see so very, very little.

” There was then a pause for awhile, during which Mr. Arabin continued to turn over his shillings and half-crowns. “If we believe in Scripture, we can hardly think that mankind in general will now be allowed to retrograde.”

Alone they but spread themselves on the ground and cower unseen in the dingy shade. But when they have found their firm supporters, how wonderful is their beauty; how all-pervading and victorious!

What is the turret without its ivy, or the high garden wall without the jasmine which gives it its beauty and fragrance? The hedge without the honeysuckle is but a hedge.

There is a feeling still half-existing, but now half-conquered by the force of human nature, that a woman should be ashamed of her love till the husband’s right to her compels her to acknowledge it. We would fain preach a different doctrine.

There is a feeling still half-existing, but now half-conquered by the force of human nature, that a woman should be ashamed of her love till the husband’s right to her compels her to acknowledge it. We would fain preach a different doctrine.

A woman should glory in her love, but on that account let her take the more care that it be such as to justify her glory.

Eleanor did glory in hers, and she felt, and had cause to feel, that it deserved to be held as glorious. She could have stood there for hours with his arm round her, had fate and Mr. Thorne permitted it.