Mr. Farebrother was too keen a man not to know the
meaning of that reply, and there was a certain massiveness
in Lydgate’s 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.
1st Gent. Where lies the power,
there let the blame lie too.
2d Gent. Nay, power is relative; you cannot
fright
The coming pest with border fortresses,
Or catch your carp with subtle argument.
All force is twain in one:
cause is not cause
Unless effect be there; and action’s
self
Must needs contain a passive.
So command
Exists but with obedience.”
Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open
about his affairs, he knew that it would have hardly
been in Mr. Farebrother’s power to give him
the help he immediately wanted. With the year’s
bills coming in from his tradesmen, with Dover’s
threatening hold on his furniture, and with nothing
to depend on but slow dribbling payments from patients
who must not be offended—for the handsome
fees he had had from Freshitt Hall and Lowick Manor
had been easily absorbed—nothing 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 Lydgate’s 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.
