The Professor

f the name, will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and submit

ave whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have pent in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of Bigben Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I should have set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my small bedroom at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been my household gods,

it the high flavour and poignant relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or m

grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that was all). Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices spoke within me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous phrases. One said: “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What can you do t

I, “and I shall see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it

ere was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church to

seeing dim trees at the extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron gate of one of the sm

t have left Sodom, when he expected fire to p

the fragrance, and saw the red spark of a cigar; the du

of Rebecca on a camel’s hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate sends me only a counting-house cler

den! good

have passed me without recognition if I

not kno

; I knew you, though you were going ahead li

while; I’m not of conseque

down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice! But si

ry, I am going

is, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he passes without much trouble. I

wicket open

wish me to go

would be agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour

followed him to the front door, which he opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlou

s; bookshelves filled the recesses on each side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste; I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that Hunsden’s ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals,

on such a Canadian night as this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be a bottle of port, nor ditt

d more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of spirits and strong wines. I had

me coffee,

cted and alienated look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and massive; not at all:— my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his inward and outward man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. Perhaps, in these incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,” lay the secret of that fi

his silent f

al lodgings of Mrs. King’s, when you might take roo

too far fro

ck two or three times a day; besides, are you such a fos

no f

paper, just like an automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask for a holiday; you never take

, Mr. H

cally different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a parallel. I say, tha

quire the knowled

nting-house more than once when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you to shut or open the doo

Hunsden,

yranny, or perhaps by means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man f

erbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in the urgency of the very reproaches by which, he aimed at goading the oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on the just liberty of

, his thin nostri

has baulked Nature! Look at the features, figure, even to the hands — distinction all over — ugly distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the peerage, oppose at every step

ch prejudice had twisted his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only moved, but shook me;

advantage; he

bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live; your only chance of get

ut in practice by those who

venturesome enough for the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think perhaps you look intellige

nger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had enough every day and all day long, I concluded

the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter Hunsden’s house this evening