them, and especially their weaknesses. He would not cheat them; for
there was in him an innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive,
at times, as to give him much trouble. The severest part of his
self-education had been the repression of his dangerous inclination to
call a sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according to their
folly. That youthful rashness, however, was now well-nigh subdued,
and Tom could flatter and bully also, when it served his turn--as who
cannot? Let him that is without sin among my readers, cast the first
stone. Self-conscious he was, therefore, in every word and action; not
from morbid vanity, but a necessary consequence of his mode of life.
He had to use men, and therefore to watch how he used them; to watch
every word, gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do
the fitting thing. It was hard work: but necessary for a man who stood
alone and self-poised in the midst of the universe; fashioning for
himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some not
intolerable condition; depending on nothing but himself, and caring
for little but himself and the father whom, to do him justice, he
never forgot. If I wished to define Tom Thurnall by one epithet, I
should call him specially an ungodly man--were it not that scriptural
epithets have, now-a-days, such altogether conventional and official
meanings, that one fears to convey, in using them, some notion quite
foreign to the truth. Tom was certainly not one of those ungodly whom
David had to deal with of old, who robbed the widow, and put the
fatherless to death. His morality was as high as that of the average;
his sense of honour far higher. He was generous and kind-hearted. No
one ever heard him tell a lie; and he had a blunt honesty about him,
half real, because he liked to be honest, and yet half affected too,
because he found it pay in the long run, and because it threw off
their guard the people whom he intended to make his tools. But of
godliness in its true sense--of belief that any Being above cared for