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which he sat in an
assembly where ladies (as he understood the title) could be seen
and heard. The impression he received was deep and lasting. On the
seat behind him were two girls whose intermittent talk held him
with irresistible charm throughout the whole ceremony. He had not
imagined that girls could display such intelligence, and the sweet
clearness of their intonation, the purity of their accent, the
grace of their habitual phrases, were things altogether beyond his
experience. This was not the English he had been wont to hear on
female lips. His mother and his aunt spoke with propriety; their
associates were soft-tongued; but here was something quite
different from inoffensiveness of tone and diction. Godwin
appreciated the differentiating cause. These young ladies behind
him had been trained from the cradle to speak for the delight of
fastidious ears; that they should be grammatical was not
enough—they must excel in the art of conversational music. Of
course there existed a world where only such speech was
interchanged, and how inestimably happy those men to whom the
sphere was native!
    When the proceedings were over, he drew aside and watched the
two girls as they mingled with acquaintances; he kept them in view
until they left the College. An emotion such as this he had never
known; for the first time in his life he was humiliated without
embitterment.
    The bitterness came when he had returned to his home in the back
street of Twybridge, and was endeavouring to spend the holidays in
a hard 'grind'. He loathed the penurious simplicity to which his
life was condemned; all familiar circumstances were become petty,
coarse, vulgar, in his eyes; the contrast with the idealised world
of his ambition plunged him into despair: Even Mr. Gunnery seemed
an ignoble figure when compared with the Professors of Whitelaw,
and his authority in the sciences was now subjected to doubt.
However much or little might result from the three years at
College, it was clear to Godwin that his former existence had
passed into infinite remoteness; he was no longer fit for
Twybridge, no longer a companion for his kindred. Oliver, whose
dulness as a schoolboy gave no promise of future achievements, was
now learning the business of a seedsman; his brother felt ashamed
when he saw him at work in the shop, and had small patience with
the comrades to whom Oliver dedicated his leisure. Charlotte was
estranged by religious differences. Only for his mother did the
young man show increased consideration. To his aunt he endeavoured
to be grateful, but his behaviour in her presence was elaborate
hypocrisy. Hating the necessity for this, he laid the blame on
fortune, which had decreed his birth in a social sphere where he
must ever be an alien.

CHAPTER III
    With the growth of his militant egoism, there had developed in
Godwin Peak an excess of nervous sensibility which threatened to
deprive his character of the initiative rightly belonging to it.
Self-assertion is the practical complement of self-esteem. To be
largely endowed with the latter quality, yet constrained by a
coward delicacy to repress it, is to suffer martyrdom at the
pleasure of every robust assailant, and in the end be driven to the
refuge of a moody solitude. That encounter with his objectionable
uncle after the prize distribution at Whitelaw showed how much
Godwin had lost of the natural vigour which declared itself at
Andrew Peak's second visit to Twybridge, when the boy certainly
would not have endured his uncle's presence but for hospitable
considerations and the respect due to his mother. The decision with
which he then unbosomed himself to Oliver, still characterised his
thoughts, but he had not courage to elude the dialogue forced upon
him, still less to make known his resentment of the man's offensive
vulgarity. He endured in silence, his heart afire with scornful
wrath.
    The affliction could not have befallen him at a time when he was
less capable of supporting it resignedly.