He grew more
jealous of criticism, more confident in his own little theories, about
this and that, more careless of the opinion of his fellowmen, and,
as a certain consequence, more unable to bear the little crosses and
contradictions of daily life; and as Lucia, having brought one and
another child safely into the world, settled down into motherhood, he
became less and less attentive to her, and more and more attentive to
that self which was fast becoming the centre of his universe.
True, there were excuses for him; for whom are there none? He was
poor and struggling; and it is much more difficult (as Becky Sharp, I
think, pathetically observes) to be good when one is poor than when
one is rich. It is (and all rich people should consider the fact) much
more easy, if not to go to heaven, at least to think one is going
thither, on three thousand a year, than on three hundred. Not only is
respectability more easy, as is proved by the broad fact that it is
the poor people who fill the gaols, and not the rich ones: but virtue,
and religion--of the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be
resigned to the will of Heaven, when that will seems tending just as
we would have it; much more easy to have faith in the goodness of
Providence, when that goodness seems safe in one's pocket in the
form of bank-notes; and to believe that one's children are under the
protection of Omnipotence, when one can hire for them in half an hour
the best medical advice in London.
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