n sun, rising
over the ----shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and
mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried;
a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat
cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the
banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender
round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed;
here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable
sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful,
active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from
it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----.
A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay Edward's
"Concern."

I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell
on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought
to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life's career--I
said to myself, "William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are
a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall
be a tradesman. Look!" I continued mentally--"Look at the sooty smoke in
that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and work!"

Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
breakfast-room. I met him collectedly--I could not meet him cheerfully;
he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how much did I read in
the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced
to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature!
He said "Good morning" abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather
than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air
of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with
an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time,
or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust
I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his
robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the
mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with comparing the two
pictures. In face