“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity,
under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of
waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,
hunger, nakedness, and suffering.”
“Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.
“If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better
qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the
weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who
cannot leave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of
endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but it is not for
me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land.”
“And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do you,
under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live?”
“I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
nobility at their backs, may have to do some daywork.”
“In England, for example?”
“Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country.
The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no
other.”
The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber
to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of
communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the
retreating step of his valet.
“England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you
have prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm face to
his nephew with a smile.
“I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible
I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge.”
“The