The Rector and The Doctor’s Family quotes

When zealous Churchmen discussed the progress of Dissent, the Rector scarcely looked interested; and nobody could move him to express an opinion concerning all that lovely upholstery with which Mr. Wentworth had decorated St. Roque’s. People asked in vain, what was he?

He was neither High nor Low, enlightened nor narrow-minded; he was a Fellow of All Souls.

“But now tell me, my dear,” said old Mrs. Proctor, “who’s Mr. Wodehouse?”

Mrs. Proctor nodded her head with a great many little satisfied assenting nods.

“Exactly my own opinion, my dear. What I like in your manner of expressing yourself, Morley, is its conciseness,” said the laughing old lady.

“Just so—exactly what I imagined; but being an ass, you know, doesn’t account for him coming here so often. What is he besides, my dear?”

The contrast between what he had looked for and what he had, was wonderful. How delicious this stillness should have been, this consciousness of having his house to himself, and nobody to interrupt his brief repose!

But somehow it appears that human nature takes best with not having its wishes granted.

It is indescribable how Dr. Rider yawned—how dull he found his newspaper—how few books worth reading there were in the house—how slow the minutes ran on.

The doctor was deeply exasperated, as was only natural: he eyed the feeble helpless creature for a moment angrily, provoked to answer her; but his gaze became one of wonder and dismay ere he withdrew it.

Surely of all incomprehensible entities, the most amazing is a fool⁠—a creature insensate, unreasoning, whom neither argument nor fact can make any impression upon.

Appalled and impressed, the doctor’s gaze left that pretty faded face to turn upon the children. Dreadful imps! If Fred had only taken to evil ways after he became possessed of such a family, his brother could have forgiven him.

When Dr. Rider reached home that night, and took his lonely meal in his lonely room, certain bitter thoughts of unequal fortune occupied the young man’s mind.

Let a fellow be but useless, thankless, and heartless enough, and people spring up on all sides to do his work for him

, said the doctor to himself, with a bitterness as natural as it was untrue. The more worthless a fellow is, the more all the women connected with him cling to him and make excuses for him, said Edward Rider in his indignant heart.

and I am not doing anything disagreeable,” added the little heroine, flashing those eyes which had confused Edward Rider—those brilliant, resolute, obstinate eyes, always with the smile of youth, incredulous of evil, lurking in them, upon her bewildered adviser.

“I am living as I like to live.”

There was a pause—at least there was a pause in the argument, but not in Nettie’s talk, which ran on in an eager stream, addressed to Freddy, Johnnie, things in general. Miss Wodehouse pondered over the handle of her parasol.

Nettie looked at him with a certain careless scorn of the inferior creature—

“Ah, yes, I daresay; but then you are only a man,” said Nettie

; and the girl elevated that pretty drooping head, and flashed a whole torrent of brilliant reflections over the sombre figure beside her. He felt himself glow under the sudden radiance of the look.

You are not so indifferent as you think you are. We shall never get over it, neither you nor me. Nettie, once for all, is this all you have to say?”

“If I were to say all the words in the language,” said Nettie, after a pause, with a breathless indistinctness and haste, “words will not change things if we should break our hearts.”

The open door, with the light shining out from it, shone upon them at that moment, and Mrs. Smith waiting to let the young lady in. Neither of the two dared face that sudden gleam.

The doctor laid down his parcels on the step, muttered something, which she could not distinguish, into Nettie’s agitated ear, and vanished back again into the darkness. Only now was Nettie awaking to the sense of what had happened, and its real importance.

Perhaps another minute, another word, might have made a difference⁠—that other word and minute that are always wanting.

She gazed out after him blankly, scarcely able to persuade herself that it was all over, and then went in with a kind of stupefied, stunned sensation, not to be described.

Even with Nettie at one hand, that peevish phantom on the other, those heartless imps in insolent possession of the wonderful little guardian who would not forsake them, made up a picture which made the doctor’s heart sick. No! Nettie was right. It was impossible.

Love, patience, charity, after all, are but human qualities, when they have to be held against daily disgusts, irritations, and miseries.

The doctor knew as well as Nettie did that he could not bear it. He knew even, as perhaps Nettie did not know, that her own image would suffer from the association;

“What is best for them will be best for me,” said Nettie, with a little impatient movement of her head. She said so with unfaltering spirit and promptitude. She had come to be impatient of the dreary maze in which she was involved. “

If one must break one’s heart, it is best to do it at once and have done with it

,” said Nettie, under her breath.

It is simply my business. That is what it is. One is sorry, of course, and now and then it feels hard, and all that. But what did one come into the world for, I should like to know?

Does anybody suppose it was just to be comfortable, and have one’s own way?

I have had my own way a great deal—more than most people. If I get crossed in some things, I have to bear it. That is all I am going to say. I have got other things to do, Miss Wodehouse.

She half despised her lover, as woman will, for obeying her—almost scorned him, as woman will, for the mere constancy which took no violent measures, but only suffered and accepted the inevitable.

To submit to what cannot be helped is a woman’s part.

Nettie, hastening along that familiar path, blazed into a sudden burst of rage against Edward because he submitted. What he could do else she was as ignorant of as any unreasonable creature could be. But that mattered little.

She did not stop to make any sentimental reflections, or to think of the thankless office in which she was about to confirm herself beyond remedy by this sudden and precipitate step.

Thinking had done Nettie little good hitherto.

She felt herself on her true ground again, when she took to doing instead. The lamp burned dimly overhead, throwing down a light confused with frost upon the hall, all encumbered with the goods of the wandering family.

“It is quite true,” said Nettie, bursting forth in sudden self-justification; “I have my work to do, and I must do it as best I can. I cannot keep considering you all, and losing my life.

I must do what God has given me to do, or I must die.

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