.. Fifteen
shillings a week--not quite that, if I spread my money out. Can one live on
fifteen shillings a week--rent, food, washing?... I shall have to leave
these lodgings at once. They're not luxurious, but I can't live here under
twenty-five, that's clear.... Three months to finish my book. It's good;
I'm hanged if it isn't! This time I shall find a publisher. All I have to
do is to stick at my work and keep my mind easy.... Lucky that it's summer;
I don't need fires. Any corner would do for me where I can be quiet and see
the sun.... Wonder whether some cottager in Surrey would house and feed me
for fifteen shillings a week?... No use lying here. Better get up and see
how things look after an hour's walk.'
So the young man arose and clad himself, and went out into the shining
street. His name was Goldthorpe. His years were not yet three-and-twenty.
Since the age of legal independence he had been living alone in London,
solitary and poor, very proud of a wholehearted devotion to the career of
authorship. As soon as he slipped out of the stuffy house, the live air,
perfumed with freshness from meadows and hills afar, made his blood pulse
joyously. He was at the age of hope, and something within him, which did
not represent mere youthful illusion, supported his courage in the face of
calculations such as would have damped sober experience.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94