He was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous evening. What will be, will be.Īs he had rather a long ride to take that day-for there was a public occasion ‘to do’ at some distance, which afforded a tolerable opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind men-he dressed early and went down to breakfast.
The end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly but he troubled himself with no calculations about it. So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he happened to be travelling. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil. When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. It is the drifting icebergs setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships. Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, than indifferent and purposeless. All very odd, and very satisfactory!Īnd yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. He had artfully, but plainly, assured her that he knew her heart in its last most delicate recesses he had come so near to her through its tenderest sentiment he had associated himself with that feeling and the barrier behind which she lived, had melted away. He had established a confidence with her, that absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and the absence, now and at all times, of any congeniality between them. He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband was excluded. He was not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to it. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with summer odours, he reckoned up his advantages as an idle winner might count his gains. THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his young friend.
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