Doctor Thorne quotes

He consoled himself as best he might for the blue looks with which he was greeted by his own party, and took his revenge by consorting more thoroughly than ever with his political adversaries.

Foolishly, like a foolish moth, he flew to the bright light, and, like the moths, of course he burnt his wings.

Early in 1833 he had become a member of Parliament, and in the autumn of 1834 the dissolution came.

The consequences were, that a bitter and expensive contest ensued. Frank Gresham, when twitted with being a Whig, foreswore the de Courcy family; and then, when ridiculed as having been thrown over by the Tories, foreswore his father’s old friends.

So between the two stools he fell to the ground, and, as a politician, he never again rose to his feet.

He never again rose to his feet; but twice again he made violent efforts to do so. Elections in East Barsetshire, from various causes, came quick upon each other in those days, and before he was eight-and-twenty years of age Mr.

Thus instigated, Mr. Gresham repeated the useless contest three times, and repeated it each time at a serious cost.

He lost his money, Lady Arabella lost her temper, and things at Greshamsbury went on by no means as prosperously as they had done in the days of the old squire.

In the first twelve years of their marriage, children came fast into the nursery at Greshamsbury. The first that was born was a boy;

Rents had been raised on them; timber had fallen fast; the lawyer on the estate was growing rich; tradesmen in Barchester, nay, in Greshamsbury itself, were beginning to mutter; and the squire himself would not be merry.

Under such circumstances the throats of a tenantry will still swallow, but their beards will not wag.

“I minds well,” said Farmer Oaklerath to his neighbour, “when the squoire hisself comed of age. Lord love ’ee! There was fun going that day. There was more yale drank then than’s been brewed at the big house these two years.

But this, like so many other such reports, had but a shadow of truth in it. “They poured the liquor in,” certainly, those who were there; but the beards did not wag as they had been wont to wag in former years.

Beards won’t wag for the telling.

The squire was at his wits’ end for money, and the tenants one and all had so heard. Rents had been raised on them; timber had fallen fast; the lawyer on the estate was growing rich;

There was but one condition; she must leave her baby behind her. The hardware-man could find it in his heart to be generous, to be generous and true to his love; but he could not be generous enough to father the seducer’s child.

“I could never abide it, sir, if I took it,” said he; “and she⁠—why in course she would always love it the best.”

In praising his generosity, who can mingle any censure for such manifest prudence? He would still make her the wife of his bosom, defiled in the eyes of the world as she had been;

“she is already the nearest thing, the only thing that I have in this world. I am her uncle, Mary. If you will go with this man I will be father to her and mother to her.

Of what bread I eat, she shall eat; of what cup I drink, she shall drink.

See, Mary, here is the Bible;” and he covered the book with his hand. “Leave her to me, and by this word she shall be my child.”

There was no better blood to be had in England. It was in the possession of such properties as these that he condescended to rejoice; this man, with a man’s heart, a man’s courage, and a man’s humanity!

Other doctors round the county had ditch-water in their veins; he could boast of a pure ichor, to which that of the great Omnium family was but a muddy puddle.

It was thus that he loved to excel his brother practitioners, he who might have indulged in the pride of excelling them both in talent and in energy! We speak now of his early days;

No, indeed; most far from perfect. He had within him an inner, stubborn, self-admiring pride, which made him believe himself to be better and higher than those around him, and this from some unknown cause which he could hardly explain to himself.

He had a pride in being a poor man of a high family; he had a pride in repudiating the very family of which he was proud; and he had a special pride in keeping his pride silently to himself.

His father had been a Thorne, and his mother a Thorold. There was no better blood to be had in England. It was in the possession of such properties as these that he condescended to rejoice;

Of course Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself.

Ladies Arabella never can. They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing-mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use.

So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse. At the end of six months the new doctor found Master Frank was not doing quite so well as he should do;

It is sometimes becoming enough for a man to wrap himself in the dignified toga of silence, and proclaim himself indifferent to public attacks; but it is a sort of dignity which it is very difficult to maintain.

As well might a man, when stung to madness by wasps, endeavour to sit in his chair without moving a muscle, as endure with patience and without reply the courtesies of a newspaper opponent.

Dr. Thorne wrote a third letter, which was too much for medical flesh and blood to bear. Dr. Fillgrave answered it, not, indeed, in his own name, but in that of a brother doctor; and then the war raged merrily.

but there was folly in the resolution to run counter to the world’s recognised rules on such matters; and much absurdity in his mode of doing so, seeing that at heart he was a thorough Conservative.

It is hardly too much to say that he naturally hated a lord at first sight; but, nevertheless, he would have expended his means, his blood, and spirit, in fighting for the upper house of Parliament.

Such a disposition, until it was thoroughly understood, did not tend to ingratiate him with the wives of the country gentlemen among whom he had to look for practice.

To trifling ailments he was too often brusque. Seeing that he accepted money for the cure of such, he should, we may say, have cured them without an offensive manner. So far he is without defence.

But to real suffering no one found him brusque; no patient lying painfully on a bed of sickness ever thought him rough.

Another misfortune was, that he was a bachelor. Ladies think, and I, for one, think that ladies are quite right in so thinking, that doctors should be married men.

But his wants were not at first great; and though his ambition was perhaps high, it was not of an impatient nature.

The world was his oyster; but, circumstanced as he was, he knew that it was not for him to open it with his lancet all at once.

He had bread to earn, which he must earn wearily; he had a character to make, which must come slowly;

“Who ever heard of going to Paris in September?” said the Lady Alexandrina.

“Or who ever heard of the gentleman having anything to say on the matter?” said the doctor’s niece.

“Of course Mr. Moffat will go wherever you are pleased to take him.”

some delicacy when high interests are at stake,” said she; “I agree with Miss Thorne in thinking that, in ordinary circumstances, with ordinary people, perhaps, the lady should have her way. Rank, however, has its drawbacks, Miss Thorne, as well as its privileges.”

“I should not object to the drawbacks,” said the doctor’s niece, “presuming them to be of some use; but I fear I might fail in getting on so well with the privileges.”

The Lady Alexandrina looked at her as though not fully aware whether she intended to be pert. In truth, the Lady Alexandrina was rather in the dark on the subject.

… doubt the more so from an unconscious feeling on their part, that as the squire was known to be a little out at elbows as regards money, any deficiency on their part might be considered as owing to the present state of affairs at Greshamsbury.

Fourteen thousand a year will receive honour; in that case there is no doubt, and the man absolutely possessing it is not apt to be suspicious as to the treatment he may receive; but the ghost of fourteen thousand a year is not always so self-assured.

Mr. Baker, with his moderate income, was a very much richer man than the squire; and, therefore, he was peculiarly forward in congratulating Frank on the brilliancy of his prospects.

the more especially as he was standing up to his work of carving, and was deep to his elbows in horseradish, fat, and gravy. So the countess sat silent while the banquet proceeded.

“Beef, Harry?” shouted the young heir to his friend Baker.

“Oh! but I see it isn’t your turn yet. I beg your pardon, Miss Bateson,” and he sent to that lady a pound and a half of excellent meat, cut out with great energy in one slice, about half an inch thick.

With such eloquence had the heir of Greshamsbury, when not yet twenty-one years of age, attempted to possess himself of the affections of the doctor’s niece. And yet three days afterwards he was quite ready to flirt with Miss Oriel.

If such things are done in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?

And what had Mary said when these fervent protestations of an undying love had been thrown at her feet? Mary, it must be remembered, was very nearly of the same age as Frank;

And what had Mary said when these fervent protestations of an undying love had been thrown at her feet? Mary, it must be remembered, was very nearly of the same age as Frank; but, as I and others have so often said before,

“Women grow on the sunny side of the wall.”

Though Frank was only a boy, it behoved Mary to be something more than a girl.

And she answered the question.

Absolute, intrinsic, acknowledged, individual merit must give it to its possessor, let him be whom, and what, and whence he might.

So far the spirit of democracy was strong with her. Beyond this it could be had but by inheritance, received as it were secondhand, or twenty-secondhand. And so far the spirit of aristocracy was strong within her.

And so the interview had ended.

Frank, of course, went upstairs to see if his new pocket-pistols were all ready, properly cleaned, loaded, and capped, should he find, after a few days’ experience, that prolonged existence was unendurable.

However, he managed to live through the subsequent period; doubtless with a view of preventing any disappointment to his father’s guests.

And so the interview had ended. Frank, of course, went upstairs to see if his new pocket-pistols were all ready, properly cleaned, loaded, and capped, should he find, after a few days’ experience, that prolonged existence was unendurable.

However, he managed to live through the subsequent period; doubtless with a view of preventing any disappointment to his father’s guests.

Lady—very slowly, and with a voice perhaps hardly articulate, carrying on, at the same time, her engineering works on a wider scale.

“Well, I don’t exactly want to leave you.”

And so the matter was settled: settled with much propriety and satisfaction;

“Niece, you’re a gander; and what is worse, a very silly gander. What is Mr. Moffat’s family to you and me? Mr. Moffat has that which ranks above family honours. He is a very rich man.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “I know he is rich; and a rich man I suppose can buy anything⁠—except a woman that is worth having.”

“A rich man can buy anything,” said the doctor; “not that I meant to say that Mr. Moffat has bought Miss Gresham.

“That does not follow,” said the doctor quickly.

“A man raises a woman to his own standard, but a woman must take that of the man she marries.”

Again they were silent, and again they walked on, Mary holding her uncle’s arm with both her hands.

“Well, it shall be either one of them or I,” said Frank: “perhaps you would prefer my cousin George to me?”

“I should prefer Janet to either, seeing that with her I should not suffer the extreme nuisance of knowing that I was a bore.”

“A bore! Mary, to me?”

“There is no mud; if there were you would not be allowed to walk at all.”

“Oh! village young ladies never care for such things, though fashionable gentlemen do.”

“I would carry you home, Mary, if it would do you a service,” said Frank, with considerable pathos in his voice.

“Of course. Anything would be preferable to my arm, I know.”

“Certainly; anything in the way of a conveyance. If I were to act baby; and you were to act nurse, it really would not be comfortable for either of us.”

Frank Gresham felt disconcerted, though he hardly knew why. He was striving to say something tender to his ladylove; but every word that he spoke she turned into joke. Mary did not answer him coldly or unkindly; but, nevertheless, he was displeased.

Frank Gresham felt disconcerted, though he hardly knew why. He was striving to say something tender to his ladylove; but every word that he spoke she turned into joke. Mary did not answer him coldly or unkindly; but, nevertheless, he was displeased.

One does not like to have one’s little offerings of sentimental service turned into burlesque when one is in love in earnest.

Mary’s jokes had appeared so easy too; they seemed to come from a heart so little troubled. This, also, was cause of vexation to Frank. If he could but have known all, he would, perhaps, have been better pleased.

He took it in his and pressed it cordially, as he might have done that of any other friend in such a case; and then—did not drop it as he should have done.

He was not a St. Anthony, and it was most imprudent in Miss Thorne to subject him to such a temptation.

“Mary,” said he; “dear Mary! dearest Mary! if you did but know how I love you!”

“Well, I am going,” said he; “but look here Augusta, if you say one word of Mary—”

Oh, Frank! Frank! you boy, you very boy! you goose, you silly goose!

Is that the way you make love, desiring one girl not to tell of another, as though you were three children, tearing your frocks and trousers in getting through the same hedge together? Oh, Frank! Frank! you, the full-blown heir of Greshamsbury?

“Fillgrave will forbid that quite as strongly as I can do.”

“Fillgrave!” said she. “Fiddlesticks! Fillgrave, indeed!”

Dr. Thorne could almost have embraced her for the strong feeling of thorough confidence on the one side, and thorough distrust on the other, which she contrived to throw into those few words.

“But Nature has not ordered you to drink, Scatcherd.”

“Habit is second nature, man; and a stronger nature than the first. And why should I not drink? What else has the world given me for all that I have done for it? What other resource have I? What other gratification?”

“Oh, my God! Have you not unbounded wealth? Can you not do anything you wish? be anything you choose?”

and I’d give it all to be able to go to work tomorrow with a hod and mortar, and have a fellow clap his hand upon my shoulder, and say: ‘Well, Roger, shall us have that ’ere other half-pint this morning?’

I’ll tell you what, Thorne, when a man has made three hundred thousand pounds, there’s nothing left for him but to die.

It’s all he’s good for then. When money’s been made, the next thing is to spend it. Now the man who makes it has not the heart to do that.”

None have so servile a deference for the very nail-parings of royalty; none feel so wondering an awe at the exaltation of a crowned head; none are so anxious to secure themselves some shred or fragment that has been consecrated by the royal touch.

It is the distance which they feel to exist between themselves and the throne which makes them covet the crumbs of majesty, the odds and ends and chance splinters of royalty.

There was nothing royal about Louis Philippe Scatcherd but his name. He had now come to man’s estate, and his father, finding the Cambridge receipt to be inefficacious, had sent him abroad to travel with a tutor.

Now Dr. Fillgrave dearly loved a five-pound fee. What physician is so unnatural as not to love it?

He dearly loved a five-pound fee; but he loved his dignity better.

He was angry also; and like all angry men, he loved his grievance. He felt that he had been badly treated; but if he took the money he would throw away his right to indulge in any such feeling.

was, indeed, quite confident that she did so; told her mother that she was sure Gustavus would wish this, she knew Gustavus would like that, and so on; but as for Gustavus himself, she did not care a chip for him.

She was in love with her match just as farmers are in love with wheat at eighty shillings a quarter; or shareholders⁠—innocent gudgeons⁠—with seven and half percent interest on their paid-up capital.

Eighty shillings a quarter, and seven and half percent interest, such were the returns which she had been taught to look for in exchange for her young heart;

Quarrel! quarrel with Greshamsbury! Angry as he was, the doctor felt that he could ill bear to quarrel with Greshamsbury.

A man past fifty cannot easily throw over the ties that have taken twenty years to form, and wrench himself away from the various close ligatures with which, in such a period, he has become bound.

He could not quarrel with the squire; he could ill bear to quarrel with Frank; though he now began to conceive that Frank had used him badly, he could not do so;

Since she had been brought out into the fashionable world some one of her instructors in fashion had given her to understand that curls were not the thing.

“They’ll always pass muster,” Miss Dunstable had replied, “when they are done up with banknotes.”

It may therefore be presumed that Miss Dunstable had a will of her own.

But Mr. Reddypalm was a man of humble desires, whose ambitions soared no higher than this—that his little bills should be duly settled.

It is wonderful what love an innkeeper has for his bill in its entirety.

An account, with a respectable total of five or six pounds, is brought to you, and you complain but of one article; that fire in the bedroom was never lighted; or that second glass of brandy and water was never called for.

Now, in many of these cases, all this might have been spared had the men made adequate use of those opportunities which youth and youthful charms afford once—and once only.

There is no road to wealth so easy and respectable as that of matrimony; that, is of course, provided that the aspirant declines the slow course of honest work. But then, we can so seldom put old heads on young shoulders!

In the case of Mr. Moffat, we may perhaps say that a specimen was produced of this bird, so rare in the land. His shoulders were certainly young, seeing that he was not yet six-and-twenty; but his head had ever been old.

But not the less on this account does a poor man find that he is quite unable to overcome the difficulties of a contested election.

We strain at our gnats with a vengeance, but we swallow our camels with ease.

For what purpose is it that we employ those peculiarly safe men of business—Messrs. Nearthewinde and Closerstil—when we wish to win our path through all obstacles into that sacred recess, if all be so open, all so easy, all so much above board? Alas!

And the blow to him was very heavy. Men but seldom tell the truth of what is in them, even to their dearest friends; they are ashamed of having feelings, or rather of showing that they are troubled by any intensity of feeling.

It is the practice of the time to treat all pursuits as though they were only half important to us, as though in what we desire we were only half in earnest.

To be visibly eager seems childish, and is always bad policy;

He laughed loud and cheerily as he left his parliamentary friends, and, putting himself into the train, went down to Boxall Hill.

He laughed loud and cheerily; but he never laughed again.

It had not been his habit to laugh much at Boxall Hill. It was there he kept his wife, and Mr. Winterbones, and the brandy bottle behind his pillow. He had not often there found it necessary to assume that loud and cheery laugh.

Yes, she could live without going to Greshamsbury; but for some time she had but a poor life of it. She felt, nay, almost heard, that every man and woman, boy and girl, in the village was telling his and her neighbour that

Mary Thorne no longer went to the house because of Lady Arabella and the young squire.

But Beatrice, of course, came to her. What was she to say to Beatrice? The truth! Nay, but it is not always so easy to say the truth, even to one’s dearest friends.

What right have we to make these charges? What have we seen in our own personal walks through life to make us believe that women are devils? There may possibly have been a Xantippe here and there, but

Imogenes are to be found under every bush.

Lady Scatcherd, in spite of the life she had led, was one of them.

This was the best side of his character; the worst, probably, was that which was brought into play by the fact that he was not a fool.

He would have a better chance of redemption in this world⁠—perhaps also in another⁠—had he been a fool.

As it was, he was no fool: he was not to be done, not he; he knew, no one better, the value of a shilling; he knew, also, how to keep his shillings, and how to spend them.

“He does not care a straw for what I advise, not one straw. Why should he?

How can I tell him to be sober when I have been a beast all my life myself?

How can I advise him? That’s where it is! It is that that now kills me. Advise! Why, when I speak to him he treats me like a child.”

“Water! No; the brandy by itself. I tell you I cannot speak without it. What’s the use of canting now? You know it can make no difference.”

Sir Roger was right. It could make no difference; and Dr. Thorne gave him the half glass of brandy.

“Ah, well; you’ve a stingy hand, doctor; confounded stingy. You don’t measure your medicines out in such light doses.”

The proposition for a moment took away the doctor’s breath, and he was unable to answer.

Not for all the wealth of India would he have given up his lamb to that young wolf, even though he had had the power to do so.

But that lamb—lamb though she was—had, as he well knew, a will of her own on such a matter. What alliance could be more impossible, thought he to himself, than one between Mary Thorne and Louis Scatcherd?

“

No, you don’t wish it. You ain’t worth a shilling, and yet you regret nothing. I am worth half a million in one way or the other, and I regret everything⁠—everything⁠—everything!

”

Such might have been the case with many a lost rake.

The things that are bad are accepted because the things that are good do not come easily in his way.

How many a miserable father reviles with bitterness of spirit the low tastes of his son, who has done nothing to provide his child with higher pleasures!

That is your own estate, your own, your very own—your own and another’s; whatever may go to the moneylenders, don’t send that there. Don’t mortgage that, Mr. Gresham.”

“No,” said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot, “I won’t mortgage that. They may do what they like with the estate; but my heart’s my own,”

and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

She struggled hard, but in vain, to prevent her hands and feet from trembling. She seemed to swing upon her donkey as though like to fall, and would have given much to be upon her own feet upon the sward.

“Si la jeunesse savait⁠ ⁠…” There is so much in that wicked old French proverb!

Had Frank known more about a woman’s mind—had he, that is, been forty-two instead of twenty-two—he would at once have been sure of his game, and have felt that Mary’s silence told him all he wished to know.

Frank, on the whole, rather liked the donkey. It enabled him to approach somewhat nearer to an embrace than he might have found practicable had they both been on their feet.

The donkey himself was quite at his ease, and looked as though he was approvingly conscious of what was going on behind his ears.

“I have a right to a word, Mary; say ‘Go,’ and I will leave you at once.”

The squire sipped his claret, but at the moment said nothing. There was a quiet, manly, but yet modest determination about his son that he had hardly noticed before. Frank had become legally of age, legally a man, when he was twenty-one.

Nature, it seems, had postponed the ceremony till he was twenty-two. Nature often does postpone the ceremony even to a much later age;⁠—sometimes, altogether forgets to accomplish it.

The squire continued to sip his claret; he had to think over the matter a while before he could answer a statement so deliberately made by his son.

Beatrice took her friend’s hand in her own and kissed it. She was full of joy.

When a girl is about to be married, when she may lawfully talk of her love, there is no music in her ears so sweet as the praises of her lover.

“I made up my mind from the first that he should marry you.”

“That’s just it: you are so ferocious in your scorn, so unbending, so determined to take all the punishment that comes in your way.”

“What I do take, I’ll take without complaint,” said Mary;

and then they kissed each other and parted.

“But if he does not love you, will you cease to do so?”

“If I have a fever, I will get rid of it if I can; in such case I must do so, or die.”

“I fear,” continued Beatrice, “you hardly know, perhaps do not think, what is Frank’s real character. He is not made to settle down early in life; even now, I believe he is attached to some lady in London, whom, of course, he cannot marry.”

“What was that one fault, Doctor Thorne?”

“He thought that clergymen should not marry. But you have cured that, and now he’s perfect.”

“Thank you, doctor. I declare that you say the prettiest things of all my friends.”

“Well, dearest, I have no questions to ask you: no directions to give. I know how good you are, and how prudent; I am anxious only for your happiness; not at all—”

“Happiness, uncle, is out of the question.”

“I hope not. It is never out of the question, never can be out of the question. But, as I was saying, I am quite satisfied your conduct will be good, and, therefore, I have no questions to ask. We will remain here;

“Indeed, I will not,” said he.

“There are some things a man should bear, and some he should not.”

“You must go,” said Mary, who had taken the note from her uncle’s hand, and read it. “You cannot refuse him when he asks you like that.”

“Ah, if he would but marry money!” said Lady Arabella to herself, taken up by a mother’s natural admiration for her son. His sisters clung round him before dinner, all talking to him at once.

How proud a family of girls are of one, big, tall, burly brother!

“You don’t mean to tell me, Frank, that you are going to eat soup with that beard?” said the squire, when they were seated round the table. He had not ceased to rally his son as to this patriarchal adornment;

She looked wistfully up in his eyes; she would fain have taken it.

But though a girl may be honest in such a case, it is so hard for her to be brave.

He still held out his hand. “Mary,” said he, “if you can value it, it shall be yours through good fortune or ill fortune. There may be difficulties; but if you can love me, we will get over them. I am a free man;

But her courage failed her.

It is so hard to throw off a tyrant; so much easier to yield, when we have been in the habit of yielding.

This third letter, therefore, was written; and it is the end of the correspondence.

So thought the father, but the matter was precipitated by Frank. He also had put off the declaration which he had to make, partly from a wish to spare the squire, but partly also with a view to spare himself.

We have all some of that cowardice which induces us to postpone an inevitably evil day.

At this time the discussions as to Beatrice’s wedding were frequent in the house, and at one of them Frank had heard his mother repeat the names of the proposed bridesmaids.

Blood, indeed! If my father had been a baker, I should know by this time where to look for my livelihood. As it is, I am told of nothing but my blood.

Will my blood ever get me half a crown?

”

She had meant to have been so condescending; but now all that was put quite beyond her power.

It was not easy to be condescending to the doctor: she had been trying all her life, and had never succeeded.

“I have had Sir Omicron Pie,” she said.

not more so, perhaps, than was Lady Arabella herself. But when one is specially invited to be candid, one is naturally set upon one’s guard. Those who by disposition are most open, are apt to become crafty when so admonished.

When a man says to you, “Let us be candid with each other,” you feel instinctively that he desires to squeeze you without giving a drop of water himself.

“Yes; but about Frank,” said Lady Arabella.

could not lead to happiness. But, nevertheless, it did make her happy. She had before his return made up her mind to be forgotten, and it was so sweet to find that he had been so far from forgetting her.

A girl may scold a man in words for rashness in his love, but her heart never scolds him for such an offence as that.

She had not been slighted, and her heart, therefore, still rose buoyant within her breast.

“My love,” he said, “it is a matter in which you must judge for yourself. Did I doubt your conduct, I should interfere; but I do not.”

“Conduct! Is conduct everything? One may conduct oneself excellently, and yet break one’s heart.”

This was too much for the doctor; his sternness and firmness instantly deserted him. “Mary,” he said, “I will do anything that you would have me. If you wish it, I will make arrangements for leaving this place at once.”