Grosse did not understand himself.
Everything had gone against him, his fortune had melted, his easy-going
luxurious life was at an end. He had no delusions; he knew perfectly
well the value of money in his world. His position in that world was
gone in fact, if not quite in seeming. The sort of conversation that
went on about him in his own circles had the sympathy, but would soon
have also the finality, of a funeral oration. There would soon be a tone
of reminiscence in those who spoke of him. It would be as if they said
gently: "Oh, yes! dear old Grosse, we knew him well at one time, don't
you know; it's a sad story." He could have told you not only the words,
but even the inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his
affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among
them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster
of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It
would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite
kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism
must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the
law of its being rejects a poor man.

And yet the idea that poor Grosse must be half crushed, horribly cut up
and done for, was not in the least true. This was what he did not
understand himself. It is well known that some people bear great trials
almost lightly who take small ones very heavily. Grosse certainly rose
to the occasion. But that a great trial had aroused great courage was
not the whole explanation by any means. Curiously enough ill-fortune
with drastic severity had done for him what he had impotently wished to
do for himself. It had made impossible the life which, in his heart, he
had despised; it absolutely forced him to use powers of which he was
perfectly conscious, and which had been rusting simply for want of
employment. It is doubtful whether he could have roused himself for any
other motive whatever. Certainly love of Rose had been unable to do it.
The will might seem to will what he wished to do, but the effort to will
strongly enough was absent. Now all the soft, padded things between him
and the depths of life had been struck away at one rude blow; he _must_
swim or sink. And so he began to swim, and the exercise restored his
circulation and braced his whole being.

It was not, perhaps, heroic exertion that he was roused into making. But
it wanted co