For
whatever is best and whatever is worst in an individual will be reflected
in his pages, seeing that, unless he is the poorest of hack authors, he
must of necessity set down therein the images that pass across the
mirrors of his heart.
Thus it seemed to Eustace, who knew "Jemima's Vow" and also her
previous abortive work almost by heart, that he was very intimately
acquainted with Augusta, and as he was walking home that May evening,
he was reflecting sadly enough of all that he had lost through that
cruel shipwreck. He had lost Augusta, and, what was more, he had lost
his uncle and his uncle's vast fortune. For he, too, had seen the
report of the application re Meeson in the _Times_, and, though he knew
that he was disinherited, it was a little crushing. He had lost the
fortune for Augusta's sake, and now he had lost Augusta also; and he
reflected, not without dismay, on the long dreary existence that
stretched away before him, filled up as it were with prospective piles
of Latin proofs. With a sigh he halted at the Wellington-street
crossing in the Strand, which, owing to the constant stream of traffic
at this point, is one of the worst in London. There was a block at the
moment, as there generally is, and he stood for some minutes watching
the frantic dashes of an old woman, who always tried to cross it at the
wrong time, not without some amusement.
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