Phoebe, Junior quotes

Her trousseau, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon’s, still called forth comments which nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer’s blooming bride.

A grocer’s lady has a right to anything her parents can afford; but to see a minister’s wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation.

The sight of young Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor’s wife, caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of Carlingford;

No dimness or mystery was wanted there; everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and respectability.

It might not be a place very well adapted for saying your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home⁠—and it was a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do at home

; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the greatest comfort, not to say luxury.

People might be angry in his presence—it was the only passion he comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the more generous sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when this large, rich, costly man came by.

People who were brought much in contact with him became ashamed of having any feelings at all; his eye upon them seemed to convict them of humbug.

Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with a jeer in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His own belief was that he could “spot” humbug wherever he saw it, and that nothing could escape him;

His own belief was that he could “spot” humbug wherever he saw it, and that nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much humbug is there in this world that his belief was justified.

But there are few more awful people than those ignoble spectators whose jeer arrests the moisture in the eye, and strangles the outcry on their neighbour’s lip.

Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether from the ranks. His father before him had been a contractor, dealing chiefly with canals and roads, and the old kind of public works;

This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles over the imperfections of the family.

“My sons buy their wives by the hundredweight,” he would say jocularly at breakfast the day after

; “thirteen stone if she is a pound, is Mrs. Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and satin, not to speak of mutton and beef. Your mother comes cheap,” he would add aside to Clarence, with a rolling laugh.

Mr. Copperhead, however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices. He was so rich that any community would have felt it ought to extend a certain measure of indulgence to such a man.

Very wealthy persons are like spoilt children, their caprices are allowed to be natural, and even when we are angry with them we excuse the vagaries to which money has a right.

This feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially among the classes engaged in moneymaking, who generally recognize a man’s right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more acutely than the hereditary possessors of wealth.

“That is not my opinion at all,” said Phoebe.

“I should like people to think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of all the trouble that has to be taken to get up this ball!”

“I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense,” said Mrs. Beecham, shaking her head. “Yes, when one comes to think of that. But then, you see, wealth has its duties. I don’t defend Mr. Copperhead—”

This gave her even a certain tragical sense of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what she would have to “put up with,” as of something much more solemn than the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome.

Phoebe felt herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made her preparations.

She was going among barbarians, a set of people who would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to “put up with.” But what of that?

they did not understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their new relations made overtures of kindness.

Children are less easily conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose.

The obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset’s attempts to win their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness, and …

I think we have only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my wages; I like to be of a little consequence,” she said, laughing.

“Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something.”

“In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you.”

John was always an ass,” said Sir Robert, with a crossness which sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with.

He was capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family, but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most painful of efforts.

“That may be very true,” said Sophy, “but all the same, it is only right that the children should be with us. Mrs. John’s people are not well off. Her mother has a large family of her own.

She was not concerned about herself in that particular. Phoebe felt it a matter of course that she should marry, and marry well.

Self-confidence of this assured and tranquil sort serves a great many excellent purposes⁠—it made her even generous in her way.

She believed in her star, in her own certain good-fortune, in herself; and therefore her mind was free to think and to work for other people.

“Phoebe! slang from you—who have always set your face against it.”

“What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a person?”

said Phoebe gravely; and thus saying she opened the door for her mother, and they went out in their best gowns to pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead was very civil to the pastor’s family. It was not in her to be uncivil to anyone;

She felt an instant conviction that he would call her “Ma’am,” if she went up to him, and think her one of the quality.

Poor Phoebe! she sat back in her corner and gave a gasp of horror and dismay, but having done this, she was herself again.

She gave herself a shake, like one who is about to take a plunge, rose lightly to her feet, took up her bag, and stepped out of the carriage, just as Mr. Tozer strolled anxiously past for the third time.

“Yes, indeed, I am little Phoebe,” she said, coming up and kissing him dutifully.

She was half-disgusted, he half-frightened; but yet it was right, and Phoebe did it.

“I have only two boxes and a bag,” she said, “besides my dressing-case. If you will get a cab, grandpapa, I will go and see after the luggage.”

Old Tozer thought he could have carried the bag himself, and left the boxes to follow; but he succumbed humbly and obeyed.

“She don’t seem a bit proud,” he said to himself; “but, good Lord, what’ll she ever say to my old woman?”

He saw the contrast very clearly between his wife and this splendid grandchild. It did not strike him so much in his own case.

Ursula had got what education she possessed in the same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts.

A girl is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners.

Janey possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they worked—Ursula’s shining and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey’s rough with elf-locks;

But they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the January night.

He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a “humph” of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for grievances.

He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their time, instead of being …

Then there was a pause.

The father of the family sat down in his chair, and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made everybody miserable.

The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and desperate, coming and going through the room.

It would be dangerous to repeat to a reader, probably quite uninterested in the controversy, Mr. Northcote’s speech, in which he laid hold of some of those weak points which the Church, of course, has in common with every other institution in the world.

Eloquence has a way of evaporating in print, even when the report is immediate.

But his peroration was one which startled his hearers out of a calm abstract interest to all that keen personal feeling which accompanies the narrative of facts known to an audience, and affecting people within their own locality.

The truth was that Mr. May, like many other people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use it, without being suspected by anybody.

A bad temper is a possession like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which, perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable.

He could work himself up into fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and fizzing thunderbolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all excited;

May was more frightened than he would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted brows.

Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other things. Some people keep clear of it miraculously, some seem to drop into it without cause or meaning, and to spend all their lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out.

Mr. May was one of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where his money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and there was a large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled after a sort.

The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of awe.

An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to the imagination, than a house which is bare.

For whom was it waiting, all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the chairs? Even Janey was hushed.

“Oh, a little—as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society,” said Phoebe, turning to Reginald for the first time, “people are free here from the necessity of doing as everybody does.

I don’t think there is any such bondage in the world⁠—dressing, living, working, amusing yourself⁠—you have to do everything as other people do it.

So I skate—I can’t help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside.”

“Janey!” cried Ursula, with horror. “Of course we know; and please will you come?

Every new person in Carlingford gets talked over, and if an angel were to walk about, Mrs. Sam Hurst would never rest till she had found out where he came from.

”

did anyone think he could pay a hundred pounds out of these?—a hundred pounds, the spending of which had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean’s.

Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!

Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans—beans which were represented in his shop in many a sackful.

Tozer was somewhat monotonous. She did her duty like a hero, and never complained; but still, if a little amusement was possible, it was worth having.

She carried in her two young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or other such small deer.

If they would fight it would be fun; and if they would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing than grandmamma.

“Yes, it is a dream,” said Reginald, with enthusiasm, “to everybody, I think; but when one has little money and much work all one’s life—poverty stands in the way of all kinds of enjoyment.”

“Poverty is a nice friendly sort of thing; a ground we can all meet on,” said Phoebe.

“But don’t let us say that to grandpapa. How odd people are! he knows you are not Croesus, but still he has a sort of feeling that you are a young prince, and do him the greatest honour in coming to his house;

“Never mind, Miss Phoebe,” he would say cheerfully, when he had broken down for the twentieth time, “play on and I’ll catch you up.”

He had thus a series of trysting places in every page or two, which might have been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent.

They were the two who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula, and the little things which from time to time he ventured to say to her.

Choice, however, being necessary, he did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose.

“The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter,”

he said to himself, if not in these immortal words, yet with full appreciation of the sentiment. Ursula began to understand dinners with a judicious intelligence, which he felt was partly created by his own instructions and remarks;

He hurried away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer’s wife?

Truth is the same by whomsoever stated; but yet, was not dogmatism on any subject the sign of an inexperienced and uncultivated, or a rude and untutored mind?

What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known three months ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely? This Church family, which Mrs.

This was not how life ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able to gratify every wish, while he—his senior, his superior!

Instead of blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do;

and accordingly, it soon began to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he ought to have …

his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent dressing-case which was the wonder of the Parsonage.

“Hang it all, what is the good of having money if you don’t spend it?”

said Clarence, and Reginald, who had not much money to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his nature to do. Thus Mr.

never before had their setting done them justice. There were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the glass, and made their owner’s heart beat with pleasure.

Alas! to think how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of money! and worse still, how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of something which should have been employed elsewhere.

Perhaps, however, the sense of guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May’s mind to the pleasure of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven knows how soon the penalty might overwhelm him.

When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers that they might sit properly.

He had the word “Rich” painted in big letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this sense of superiority.

Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great man’s appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr.

but it is to be feared the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they ought not to have had.

Open and outrageous lovemaking is not half so delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but all is implication, conveyed and understood without words.

I know it is a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to give a disagreeable version of it;

not so much sound of voices, perhaps less laughter—yet of all the evenings they had spent there together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most tender recollection.

They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near (apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness itself.

“Don’t let Reginald come with me,” Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her friend, and said good night, “or ask Mr. Northcote to come too.”

There was an early train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir Robert had done, changing horses halfway. He went upstairs to bed, somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way.

After all, the great thing in life is to see your way.

It does not matter so much whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He had a great many things on his mind;

but fortunately for us, it isn’t often they’ve got any money,” he added, with a laugh, slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the clergyman’s good-humour was equal even to this assault.

It is wonderful how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.

“That is true,” he said; “but I fear I have not even the compensation of knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he pleases.”

“Don’t say nothing, Miss,” said Betsy, sinking her voice, “but you take my word it’s money.

Money’s at the bottom of everything.

It’s something, as sure as you’re alive, as master has got to pay. I’ve been a deal with gentlefolks,” added Betsy, “and ne’er a one of them can abide that.”

A panic took possession of her as she sat there at the foot of Ursula’s bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of trying to think?

The more you have need of them, the more all mental processes fail you.

Phoebe could no more think than she could fly.

A panic took possession of her as she sat there at the foot of Ursula’s bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of trying to think? The more you have need of them, the more all mental processes fail you.

Phoebe could no more think than she could fly.

She sat down very seriously, and she rose up in despair, and, thought being no longer among her possibilities, resolved to do something at once, without further delay, which would be a consolation to herself at least.

She could scarcely see him through those oceans of moisture, bitter and salt, yet softened by the sense of trust in him, and rest upon him. When he stooped and kissed her on the forehead before them all, the girl did not blush.

It was a solemn betrothal, sealed by pain, not by kisses.

“Yes, go,” she said to him in words which were half sobs, and which he understood, but no one else.

And what comfort it was to lie down, and feel all the throbs and pulses gradually subsiding, the fright going off, the satisfaction of success coming back, and gradually a slumberous, delicious ease stealing over her.

Of all the clever things Phoebe had done in her life, it must be allowed that there was not one so masterly as the fact that she, then and there, went to sleep.

All this had taken up a good deal of time. It was twelve when Mr. Simpson of the bank disturbed the lovers in the garden, and it was one o’clock before Phoebe put a stop to all Tozer’s vindictive plans by going to bed.