Dr. Wortle’s School quotes

The Rev. Jeffrey Wortle, D.D., was a man much esteemed by others⁠—and by himself.

He combined two professions, in both of which he had been successful—had been, and continued to be, at the time in which we speak of him.

But he was a domineering husband. As his wife worshipped him, and regarded him as a Jupiter on earth from whose nod there could be and should be no appeal, but little harm came from this.

If a tyrant, he was an affectionate tyrant.

His wife felt him to be so. His servants, his parish, and his school all felt him to be so. They obeyed him, loved him, and believed in him.

His ushers or assistants in the school fell in with his views implicitly, and were content to accept compensation in the shape of personal civilities.

It was much better to go shares with the Doctor in a joke than to have to bear his hard words.

It is chiefly in reference to one of these ushers that our story has to be told. But before we commence it, we must say a few more words as to the Doctor and his family. Of his wife I have already spoken.

The Marchioness blushed, and stammered, and begged a hundred pardons. Being a good-natured woman, she told the whole story to Mrs. Wortle. “I would just as soon have offered the money to the Marchioness herself,” said Mrs. Wortle, as she told it to her husband.

“I would have done it a deal sooner,” said the Doctor. “I am not in the least afraid of Lady Altamont; but I stand in awful dread of Mrs. Peacocke.”

Nevertheless Mrs. Peacocke had done her work by the little lord’s bedside, just as though she had been a paid nurse.

This had been said to the Rector by the Bishop himself—who probably would have said nothing of the kind had not these reports reached his ears. But reports, when they reach a certain magnitude, and attain a certain importance, require to be noticed.

So much in this world depends upon character that attention has to be paid to bad character even when it is not deserved.

In dealing with men and women, we have to consider what they believe, as well as what we believe ourselves. The utility of a sermon depends much on the idea that the audience has of the piety of the man who preaches it.

Therefore, put the book down if the revelation of some future secret be necessary for your enjoyment. Our mystery is going to be revealed in the next paragraph—in the next half-dozen words.

Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were not man and wife.

The story how it came to be so need not be very long;—nor will it, as I think, entail any great degree of odious criminality either upon the man or upon the woman. At St. Louis Mrs.

Louis. Then there came to him an idea that even she might disbelieve the words which he had spoken;—that even she might think his story to have been false. But to this she soon put an end.

“Dearest,” she said, “I never knew a word that was true to come from his mouth, or a word that was false from yours.”

Should they part? There is no one who reads this but will say that they should have parted. Every day passed together as man and wife must be a falsehood and a sin.

There was an uncharitableness in such a proceeding altogether opposed to the Doctor’s view of life.

He hated severity. It may almost be said that he hated that state of perfection which would require no pardon.

He was thoroughly human, quite content with his own present position, anticipating no millennium for the future of the world, and probably, in his heart, looking forward to heaven as simply the better alternative when the happiness of this world should be at an end.

If there be anything affecting your wife which you do not wish all the world on this side of the water to know, do not tell it to anyone on this side of the water.”

“There is something affecting my wife that I do not wish all the world to know.”

“Then tell it to no one,” said Dr. Wortle, authoritatively.

He had known that, as a consequence of this, he was bound to be more than ordinarily prompt in the performance of all his duties.

The man who will not endure censure has to take care that he does not deserve it.

Such had been this man’s struggle, and it had been altogether successful. Each of the two understood the other, and each respected the other. Now their position must be changed. It was hardly possible, Mr.

I could not send her from me. Nor could I go and leave her. Had we been separated then, because of the law or because of religion, the burden, the misery, the desolation, would all have been upon her.”

“I would have clung to her, let the law say what it might,”

said the Doctor, rising from his chair.

“Why did she not leave him?”

“Because she was a woman, with a heart in her bosom.”

“I am to go to her?”

… my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened.

The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and scraped is more palpably dirt than the honest mud.

”

“But I do. They talk of boys going away from the school.”

“Boys will go and boys will come, but we run on forever,”

said the Doctor, playfully.

There would be nine empty beds in the school when it met again after the holidays; and the Doctor well understood that nine beds remaining empty would soon cause others to be emptied.

It is success that creates success, and decay that produces decay.

Gradual decay he knew that he could not endure. He must shut up his school—give up his employment—and retire altogether from the activity of life.

but his state became still worse when he received an affectionate but solemn letter from the Bishop warning him of his danger.

An affectionate letter from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish clergyman can receive.

Affection from one man to another is not natural in letters. A bishop never writes affectionately unless he means to reprove severely.

An affectionate letter from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish clergyman can receive. Affection from one man to another is not natural in letters.

A bishop never writes affectionately unless he means to reprove severely.

When he calls a clergyman his “dear brother in Christ,” he is sure to go on to show that the man so called is altogether unworthy of the name.

The Bishop did not indeed, at first, make reference by name to Everybody’s Business, but he stated that the “metropolitan press” had taken up the matter, and that scandal would take place in the diocese if further cause were given.

“It is not enough to be innocent,” said the Bishop, “but men must know that we are so.”

Then there came a sharp and pressing correspondence between the Bishop and the Doctor, which lasted four or five days.

Wortle himself—and to Mrs. Peacocke. Mrs. Stantiloup, who had made her way into the palace, was quite convincing on this point. Everybody knew, she said, that the Doctor went across, and saw the lady all alone, every day. Everybody did not know that.

If everybody had been accurate, everybody would have asserted that he did this thing every other day.

But the matter, as it was represented to the Bishop by the ladies, with the assistance of one or two clergymen in the Close, certainly seemed to justify his lordship’s interference.

“The damage has been already done,” said the Doctor, eagerly. “I have received the Bishop’s rebuke—a rebuke in which he has said that I have brought scandal upon the diocese.”

“Rebukes break no bones,” said the lawyer.

“Can you show that it will serve to prevent boys from coming to your school?”

“I dare say. It seems innocent enough to them.

If soot be thrown at a chimney-sweeper the joke is innocent, but very offensive when it is thrown at you.

”

I should never have troubled myself about the newspaper if the Bishop had not sent it to me. Indeed I had seen it before the Bishop sent it, and thought little or nothing of it.

Animals will after their kind. The wasp stings, and the polecat stinks, and the lion tears its prey asunder.

Such a paper as that of course follows its own bent. One would have thought that a bishop would have done the same.”

“Have told them what?” she asked. She knew; she felt sure that she knew; and yet she could not refrain from the question.

“I have come here to ask if you can love me.”

It was a most decided way of declaring his purpose, and one which made Mary feel that a great difficulty was at once thrown upon her. She really did not know whether she could love him or not.

Mary did not think very much about “it” in such a way as to create disappointment. She at once realised the impossibilities, so far as to perceive that the young lord was the top brick of the chimney as far as she was concerned.

The top brick of the chimney may be very desirable, but one doesn’t cry for it, because it is unattainable.

Therefore Mary did not in truth think of loving her young lover. He had been to her a very nice boy; and so he was still; that;—that, and nothing more.

“Perhaps I shall. It is quite possible that you should murder me. But you will not get any money by that.”

“Murder you. You ain’t worth murdering.”

Then they sat in silence, waiting another hour and a half till the steamboat came. The reader will understand that it must have been a bad time for Mr. Peacocke.

“No, I ain’t;—not frightened you a bit.

A pistol’s always better than a knife any day.

Well now, I’ll tell ye how it all is.” Saying this, he seated himself on his own bed, and began a long narration. He would not go further West than Leavenworth.

“

When everything is in ruin about you, what room is there for ordinary well-doing?

It seemed then that he would have some remnant of property. Our fathers had known each other long. The wretched man whom drink afterwards made so vile might have been as good a gentleman as another, if things had gone well with him.

I am not ashamed of myself. I owe it to him to blush for nothing that he has caused me to do.

I have but two judges⁠—the Lord in heaven, and he, my husband, upon earth.

”

“

Her wickedness is a matter of course. We all knew that beforehand.

If a person has to be wicked, it is a great thing for him to be successful in his wickedness. He would have to pay the final penalty even if he failed. To be wicked and to do nothing is to be mean all round.

“Her wickedness is a matter of course. We all knew that beforehand. If a person has to be wicked, it is a great thing for him to be successful in his wickedness. He would have to pay the final penalty even if he failed.

To be wicked and to do nothing is to be mean all round.

I am afraid that Mrs. Stantiloup will have succeeded in her wickedness.”

Degrees, too, have been taken by married men. And, again, young men have been persistent before now, even to the extent of waiting three years. Long engagements are bad—no doubt. Everybody has always said so.

But a long engagement may be better than none at all.

He at last made up his mind that he would speak to Mary; but he determined that he would consult his wife first. Consulting Mrs. Wortle, on his part, generally amounted to no more than instructing her.

As to Mary—he could not conceive that she should make objection if all the others were agreed. How could she possibly fail to love the young man if encouraged to do so?

Suitors who are good-looking, rich, of high rank, sweet-tempered, and at the same time thoroughly devoted, are not wont to be discarded.

All the difficulty lay in the lad’s youth. After all, how many noblemen have done well in the world without taking a degree? Degrees, too, have been taken by married men.

“I don’t know that I was at all more likely to be true on that account.

A clergyman can jilt a girl just as well as another. It depends on the nature of the man.

”

“He makes no objection of that kind. To tell the truth, Mary, I should have thought it unreasonable had he done so. A gentleman can do no better than marry a lady.

And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to be a gentleman.

”