ny-wise, mean notion. Rosamond, even without such an
occasion as Captain Lydgate's visit, was fond of giving invitations,
and Lydgate, though he often thought the guests tiresome, did not
interfere. This sociability seemed a necessary part of professional
prudence, and the entertainment must be suitable. It is true Lydgate
was constantly visiting the homes of the poor and adjusting his
prescriptions of diet to their small means; but, dear me! has it not by
this time ceased to be remarkable--is it not rather that we expect in
men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by
side and never compare them with each other? Expenditure--like
ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own
personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is
manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others. Lydgate
believed himself to be careless about his dress, and he despised a man
who calculated the effects of his costume; it seemed to him only a
matter of course that he had abundance of fresh garments--such things
were naturally ordered in sheaves. It must be remembered that he had
never hitherto felt the check of importunate debt, and he walked by
habit, not by self-criticism. But the check had come.

Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed, disgusted that
conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully disconnected
with the objects he cared to occupy himself with, should have lain in
ambush and clutched him when he was unaware. And there was not only
the actual debt; there was the certainty that in his present position
he must go on deepening it. Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing,
whose bills had been incurred before his marriage, and whom
uncalculated current expenses had ever since prevented him from paying,
had repeatedly sent him unpleasant letters which had forced themselves
on his attention. This could hardly have been more galling to any
disposition than to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of
asking a favor or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned
even to form conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters,
and nothing but extremity could have induced him to apply to his
father-in-law, even if he had not been made aware in various indirect
ways since his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not
flourishing, and that the expectation of help from him would be
resented. Some me