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sneakingI dare say you doyou may tell him to spare himself the journey o coming back home. Let him turn ostler, and keep himself. He shant hang on me any more. I dont know where he is; and if I did, it isnt my place to tell him to keep away, said Godfrey, moving towards the door. Confound it, sir, dont stay arguing, but go and order my horse, said the Squire, taking up a pipe. Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether he were more relieved by the sense that the interview was ended without having made any change in his position, or more uneasy that he had entangled himself still further in prevarication and deceit. What had passed about his proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm, lest by some after-dinner words of his fathers to Mr. Lammeter he should be thrown into the embarrassment of being obliged absolutely to decline her when she seemed to be within his reach. He fled to his usual refugethat of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequences, perhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting its prudence. In this point of trusting to some throw of fortunes dice Godfrey can hardly be called old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friends confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind. |
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