on the pecuniary dispute between us. She cut off my
allowances: I uttered not a word; but managed to live without her aid.
I never heard that she repented of her injustice, or acknowledged it,
except from Harry's private communication to me. In after days, when we
met, by a great gentleness in her behaviour, and an uncommon respect
and affection shown to my wife, Madam Esmond may have intended I should
understand her tacit admission that she had been wrong; but she made no
apology, nor did I ask one. Harry being provided for (whose welfare I
could not grudge), all my mother's savings and economical schemes went
to my advantage, who was her heir. Time was when a few guineas would
have been more useful to me than hundreds which might come to me when
I had no need; but when Madam Esmond and I met, the period of necessity
was long passed away; I had no need to scheme ignoble savings, or to
grudge the doctor his fee: I had plenty, and she could but bring me
more. No doubt she suffered in her own mind to think that my children
had been hungry, and she had offered them no food; and that strangers
had relieved the necessity from which her proud heart had caused her to
turn aside. Proud? Was she prouder than I? A soft word of explanation
between us might have brought about a reconciliation years before it
came but I would never speak, nor did she. When I commit a wrong, and
know it subsequently, I love to ask pardon; but 'tis as a satisfaction
to my own pride, and to myself I am apologising for having been wanting
to myself. And hence, I think (out of regard to that personage of ego),
I scarce ever could degrade myself to do a meanness. How do men feel
whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and
subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone?
Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every
wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow wear a mask in his own privacy,
and to his own conscience? If I choose to pass over an injury, I fear
'tis not from a Christian and forgiving spirit: 'tis because I can
afford to remit the debt, and disdain to ask a settlement of it. One
or two sweet souls I have known in my life (and perhaps tried) to whom
forgiveness is no trouble--a plant that grows naturally, as it were, in
the soil. I know how to remit, I say, not forgive. I wonder are we proud
men proud of being proud?

So I showed not the least sign of submission towards my parent