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Ah, theres enormous patience wanted with the way of the world. But it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends who love him, and ask for nothing better than to help him through, so far as it lies in their power. Oh yes, said Lydgate, in a careless tone, changing his attitude and looking at his watch. People make much more of their difficulties than they need to do. He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help to himself from Mr. Farebrother, and he could not bear it. So strangely determined are we mortals, that, after having been long gratified with the sense that he had privately done the Vicar a service, the suggestion that the Vicar discerned his need of a service in return made him shrink into unconquerable reticence. Besides, behind all making of such offers what else must come?that he should mention his case, imply that he wanted specific things. At that moment, suicide seemed easier. Mr. Farebrother was too keen a man not to know the meaning of that reply, and there was a certain massiveness in Lydgates manner and tone, corresponding with his physique, which if he repelled your advances in the first instance seemed to put persuasive devices out of question. What time are you? said the Vicar, devouring his wounded feeling. After eleven, said Lydgate. And they went into the drawing-room. Chapter 64
Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs, he knew that it would have hardly been in Mr. Farebrothers power to give him the help he immediately wanted. With the years bills coming in from his tradesmen, with Dovers threatening hold on his furniture, and with nothing to depend on but slow dribbling payments from patients who must not be offendedfor the handsome fees he had had from Freshitt Hall and Lowick Manor had been easily absorbednothing less than a thousand pounds would have freed him from actual embarrassment, and left a residue which, according to the favorite phrase of hopefulness in such circumstances, would have given him time to look about him. Naturally, the merry Christmas bringing the happy New Year, when fellow-citizens expect to be paid for the trouble and goods they have smilingly bestowed on their neighbors, had so tightened the pressure of sordid cares on Lydgates mind that it was hardly possible for him to think unbrokenly of any other subject, even the most habitual and soliciting. He was not an ill-tempered man; his intellectual activity, the ardent kindness of his heart, as well as his strong frame, would always, under tolerably easy conditions, have kept him above the petty uncontrolled susceptibilities which make bad temper. But he was now a prey to that worst irritation which arises not simply from annoyances, but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation, which was the reverse of all his former purposes. This is what I am thinking of; and that is what I might have been thinking of, was the bitter incessant murmur within him, making every difficulty a double goad to impatience. Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lydgates discontent was much harder to bear: it was the sense that there was a grand existence in thought and effective action lying around him, while his self was being narrowed into the miserable isolation of egoistic fears, and vulgar anxieties for events that might allay such fears. His troubles will perhaps appear miserably sordid, and beneath the attention of lofty persons who can know nothing of debt except on a magnificent scale. Doubtless they were sordid; and |
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