apart to a great extent from
the companionships which most readily offered. The turn taken by the
circumstances of his family affected the pride which was one of his
strongest characteristics; his house had fallen, and it seemed to him
that a good deal of pity, if not of contempt, mingled with his reception
by the more fortunate of his own standing. He had never overcome a
natural hostility to old Mr. Mutimer: the _bourgeois_ virtues of the
worthy ironmaster rather irritated than attracted him, and he suffered
intensely in the thought that his mother brought herself to close
friendship with one so much her inferior just for the sake of her son's
future. In this matter he judged with tolerable accuracy. Mrs. Eldon,
finding in the old man a certain unexpected refinement over and above
his goodness of heart, consciously or unconsciously encouraged herself
in idealising him, that the way of interest might approach as nearly as
might be to that of honour. Hubert, with no understanding for the craggy
facts of life, inwardly rebelled against the whole situation. He felt
that it laid him open to ridicule, the mere suspicion of which always
stung him to the quick. When, therefore, he declared to his mother,
in the painful interview on his return to Wanley, that it was almost a
relief to him to have lost the inheritance, he spoke with perfect truth.
Amid the tempest which had fallen on his life there rose in that moment
the semblance of a star of hope. The hateful conditions which had
weighed upon his future being finally cast off, might he not look
forward to some nobler activity than had hitherto seemed possible? Was
he not being saved from his meaner self, that part of his nature which
tended to conventional ideals, which was subject to empty pride and
ignoble apprehensions? Had he gone through the storm without companion,
hope might have overcome every weakness, but sympathy with his mother's
deep distress troubled his self-control. At her feet he yielded to the
emotions of childhood, and his misery increased until bodily suffering
brought him the relief of unconsciousness.

To his mother perhaps he owed that strain of idealism which gave his
character its significance. In Mrs. Eldon it affected only the inner
life; in Hubert spiritual strivings naturally sought the outlet of
action. That his emancipation should declare itself in some exaggerated
way was quite to be expected: impatience of futilities and insincerities
made c