Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
Book online «Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ». Author George Eliot
One day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a tour in the Rhineland with his Eton tutor, and was come for a farewell stay at the Abbey before going to Cambridge, he said to Sir Hugo,
âWhat do you intend me to be, sir?â They were in the library, and it was the fresh morning. Sir Hugo had called him in to read a letter from a Cambridge Don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet wore an air at once businesslike and leisurely, the moment seemed propitious for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been thoroughly discussed.
âWhatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. I thought it right to give you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and I was glad. I donât expect you to choose just yetâ âby-and-by, when you have looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older men. The university has a good wide opening into the forum. There are prizes to be won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a manâs taste. From what I see and hear, I should think you can take up anything you like. You are in the deeper water with your classics than I ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge is the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport yourself on the dry sand as much as you like. I floundered along like a carp.â
âI suppose money will make some difference, sir,â said Daniel blushing. âI shall have to keep myself by-and-by.â
âNot exactly. I recommend you not to be extravagantâ âyes, yes, I knowâ âyou are not inclined to thatâ âbut you need not take up anything against the grain. You will have a bachelorâs incomeâ âenough for you to look about with. Perhaps I had better tell you that you may consider yourself secure of seven hundred a year. You might make yourself a barristerâ âbe a writerâ âtake up politics. I confess that is what would please me best. I should like to have you at my elbow and pulling with me.â
Deronda looked embarrassed. He felt that he ought to make some sign of gratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. A moment was passing by in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and yet it seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find ventâ âmore impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from Sir Hugoâs lips. The liberal way in which he was dealt with was the more striking because the baronet had of late cared particularly for money, and for making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by way of providing for his daughters; and as all this flashed through Danielâs mind it was momentarily within his imagination that the provision for him might come in some way from his mother. But such vaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came.
Sir Hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in Danielâs manner, and presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness.
âI am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and have got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, itâs hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse youâll give him as a cue. Thatâs all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, itâs a nicety of conversation which I would have you attend toâ âmuch quotation of any sort, even in English is bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One couldnât carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves. But talking of Dons, I have seen Dons make a capital figure in society; and occasionally he can shoot you down a cartload of learning in the right place, which will tell in politics. Such men are wanted; and if you have any turn for being a Don, I say nothing against it.â
âI think thereâs not much chance of that. Quicksett and Puller are both stronger than I am. I hope you will not be much disappointed if I donât come out with high honors.â
âNo, no. I should like you to do yourself credit, but for Godâs sake donât come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young Brecon, who got a Double First, and has been learning to knit braces ever since. What I wish you to get is a passport in life. I donât go against our university system: we want a little disinterested culture to make head against cotton and capital, especially in the House. My Greek has all evaporated; if I had to construe a verse on a sudden, I should get an apoplectic fit. But it formed my taste. I dare say my English is the better for it.â
On this point Daniel kept a respectful silence. The enthusiastic belief in Sir Hugoâs writings as a standard, and in the Whigs as the chosen race among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic boyâs face. He had not been the hardest of workers at Eton. Though some kinds of study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not of the material
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