AND
the Latin and Greek grammars?" Jude's voice trembled with anxiety.
"What about them?"
"You were to bring me yours, that you used before you took your
degree."
"Ah, yes, yes! Forgot all about it- all! So many lives depending on
my attention, you see, my man, that I can't give so much thought as
I would like to other things."
Jude controlled himself sufficiently long to make sure of the truth;
and he repeated, in a voice of dry misery, "You haven't brought
'em!"
"No. But you must get me some more orders from sick people, and I'll
bring the grammars next time."
Jude dropped behind. He was an
unsophisticated boy, but the gift of sudden insight which is
sometimes vouchsafed to children showed him all at once what shoddy
humanity the quack was made of. There was to be no intellectual
light from this source. The leaves dropped from his imaginary crown
of laurel; he turned to a gate, leant against it, and cried
bitterly.
The disappointment was followed by an
interval of blankness. He might, perhaps, have obtained grammars from
Alfredston, but to do that required money, and a knowledge of what books to
order; and though physically comfortable, he was in such absolute dependence as
to be without a farthing of his own.
Thomas Hardy, He wished he had never seen a book
