ance to a
gentleman; it had never occurred to him to devise a plan for getting
half-crowns. He had always known in a general way that he was not
rich, but he had never felt poor, and he had no power of imagining the
part which the want of money plays in determining the actions of men.
Money had never been a motive to him. Hence he was not ready to frame
excuses for this deliberate pursuit of small gains. It was altogether
repulsive to him, and he never entered into any calculation of the
ratio between the Vicar's income and his more or less necessary
expenditure. It was possible that he would not have made such a
calculation in his own case.

And now, when the question of voting had come, this repulsive fact told
more strongly against Mr. Farebrother than it had done before. One
would know much better what to do if men's characters were more
consistent, and especially if one's friends were invariably fit for any
function they desired to undertake! Lydgate was convinced that if
there had been no valid objection to Mr. Farebrother, he would have
voted for him, whatever Bulstrode might have felt on the subject: he
did not intend to be a vassal of Bulstrode's. On the other hand, there
was Tyke, a man entirely given to his clerical office, who was simply
curate at a chapel of ease in St. Peter's parish, and had time for
extra duty. Nobody had anything to say against Mr. Tyke, except that
they could not bear him, and suspected him of cant. Really, from his
point of view, Bulstrode was thoroughly justified.

But whichever way Lydgate began to incline, there was something to make
him wince; and being a proud man, he was a little exasperated at being
obliged to wince. He did not like frustrating his own best purposes by
getting on bad terms with Bulstrode; he did not like voting against
Farebrother, and helping to deprive him of function and salary; and the
question occurred whether the additional forty pounds might not leave
the Vicar free from that ignoble care about winning at cards.
Moreover, Lydgate did not like the consciousness that in voting for
Tyke he should be voting on the side obviously convenient for himself.
But would the end really be his own convenience? Other people would
say so, and would allege that he was currying favor with Bulstrode for
the sake of making himself important and getting on in the world. What
then? He for his own part knew that if his personal prospects simply
had been concerned