How poor, how corrupt,
did the life look that he was leading now, by comparison with the life
that he had led in those earlier and happier days! How shamefully he
had forgotten the simple precepts of Christian humility, Christian
sympathy, and Christian self-restraint, in which his teachers had
trusted as the safeguards that were to preserve him from the foul
contact of the world! Within the last two days only, he had refused to
make merciful allowance for the errors of a man, whose life had been
wasted in the sordid struggle upward from poverty to wealth. And, worse
yet, he had cruelly distressed the poor girl who loved him, at the
prompting of those selfish passions which it was his first and foremost
duty to restrain. The bare remembrance of it was unendurable to him, in
his present frame of mind. With his customary impetuosity, he snatched
up the pen, to make atonement before he went to rest that night. He
wrote in few words to Mr. Farnaby, declaring that he regretted having
spoken impatiently and contemptuously at the interview between them,
and expressing the hope that their experience of each other, in the
time to come, might perhaps lead to acceptable concessions on either
side.
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