"
Lewes's Life of Goethe.
Man is a selfish being, and I am a particularly fine specimen of the
race as far as that characteristic goes. If I had had a dozen
drunken parents I should never have danced attendance on one of
them; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick for the line he had
taken, for we mostly do admire what is unlike ourselves and really
noble, though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent to
everything in heaven and earth. But all the same I felt annoyed
about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own
affairs at Mondisfield.
Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness,
and a hard awaking. That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's
story, and may be passed over. In October I settled down in
Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and began to read for the Bar, in about
as disagreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived. One morning I
found on my breakfast table a letter in Derrick's handwriting. Like
most men, we hardly ever corresponded--what women say in the eternal
letters they send to each other I can't conceive--but it struck me
that under the circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to ask
how he was getting on, and my conscience pricked me as I remembered
that I had hardly thought of him since we parted, being absorbed in
my own matters.
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