experience has already taught him that a different line of action is
necessary. Men in the upper walks of life do not mind being cursed,
and the women, presuming that it be done in delicate phrase, rather
like it. But he has not, therefore, given up so important a portion
of believing Christians. With the men, indeed, he is generally
at variance; they are hardened sinners, on whom the voice of the
priestly charmer too often falls in vain; but with the ladies, old
and young, firm and frail, devout and dissipated, he is, as he
conceives, all powerful. He can reprove faults with so much flattery
and utter censure in so caressing a manner that the female heart, if
it glow with a spark of Low Church susceptibility, cannot withstand
him. In many houses he is thus an admired guest: the husbands, for
their wives' sake, are fain to admit him; and when once admitted it
is not easy to shake him off. He has, however, a pawing, greasy way
with him, which does not endear him to those who do not value him
for their souls' sake, and he is not a man to make himself at once
popular in a large circle such as is now likely to surround him at
Barchester.




CHAPTER V

A Morning Visit


It was known that Dr. Proudie would immediately have to reappoint to
the wardenship of the hospital under the act of Parliament to which
allusion has been made; no one imagined that any choice was left to