He had fully realized the fact
that he must come to blows with Mrs. Proudie. He had no desire to
remain in Barchester as her chaplain. Sooner than do so, he would
risk the loss of his whole connexion with the diocese. What! Was he
to feel within him the possession of no ordinary talents--was he
to know himself to be courageous, firm, and, in matters where his
conscience did not interfere, unscrupulous--and yet he contented to
be the working factotum of a woman prelate? Mr. Slope had higher
ideas of his own destiny. Either he or Mrs. Proudie must go to the
wall, and now had come the time when he would try which it should be.

The bishop had declared that Mr. Quiverful should be the new warden.
As Mr. Slope went downstairs, prepared to see the archdeacon, if
necessary, but fully satisfied that no such necessity would arise,
he declared to himself that Mr. Harding should be warden. With the
object of carrying this point, he rode over to Puddingdale and had a
further interview with the worthy expectant of clerical good things.
Mr. Quiverful was on the whole a worthy man. The impossible task
of bringing up as ladies and gentlemen fourteen children on an
income which was insufficient to give them with decency the common
necessaries of life, had had an effect upon him not beneficial either
to his spirit or his keen sense of honour. Who can boast that he
would have supported such a burden with a different result? Mr.
Quiverful was an honest, painstaking, drudging man, anxious indeed
for bread and meat, anxious for means to quiet his butcher and cover
with returning smiles the now sour countenance of the baker's wife;
but anxious also to be right with his own conscience. He was not
careful, as another might be who sat on an easier worldly seat,
to stand well with those around him, to shun a breath which might
sully his name or a rumour which might affect his honour. He could
not afford such niceties of conduct, such moral luxuries. It must
suffice for him to be ordinarily honest according to the ordinary
honesty of the world's ways, and to let men's tongues wag as they
would.

He had felt that his brother clergymen, men whom he had known for the
last twenty years, looked coldly on him from the first moment that
he had shown himself willing to sit at the feet of Mr. Slope; he had
seen that their looks grew colder still when it became bruited about
that he was to be the bishop's new warden at Hiram's Hospital. This
was painful