Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Fenwick's Career by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 36 of 391 (09%)

'Where should I drive him to?' cried Mrs. Fenwick, stifled. She had
broken a sycamore twig, and was stripping it violently of its buds.

Miss Anna looked at her unmoved. The grey-haired schoolmistress was
a woman of ideas and ambitions beyond her apparent scope in life.
She had read her Carlyle and Ruskin, and in her calling she was an
enthusiast. But, in the words of the Elizabethan poet, she was
perhaps 'unacquainted still with her own soul.' She imagined herself a
Radical; she was in truth a tyrant. She preached Ruskin and the
simple life; no worldling ever believed more fiercely in the gospel
of success. But, let it be said promptly, it was success for others,
rarely or never for herself; she despised the friend who could not
breast and conquer circumstance; as for her own case, there were
matters much more interesting to think of. But she was the gadfly, the
spur of all to whom she gave her affection. Phoebe, first her pupil,
then her under-mistress, and moulded still by the old habit of
subordination to her, both loved and dreaded her. It was said that she
had made the match between her _protégée_ and old Fenwick's rebellious
and gifted son. She had certainly encouraged it, and, whether from
conscience or invincible habit, she had meddled a good deal with it
ever since.

In reply to Phoebe's question, Miss Anna merely inquired whether Mrs.
Fenwick supposed that George Romney--the Westmoreland artist--would
have had much chance with his art if he had stayed on in Westmoreland?
Why, the other day a picture by Romney had been sold for three
thousand pounds! And pray, would he ever have become a great painter
at all if he had stuck to Kendal or Dalton-in-Furness all his
life?--if he had never been brought in contact with the influences,
DigitalOcean Referral Badge