He seemed
not to have reasoned it out to himself in detail before,
but now, at all events, he saw his way clearly enough.
Why should he be tormented with doubts and misgivings
about himself, as if he had come out of the gutter?
Why indeed? He had passed through--and with credit,
too--one of the great public schools of England.
He had been there on a footing of perfect equality,
so far as he saw, with the sons of aristocratic families
or of great City potentates. And as to birth, he had
behind him three generations at least of scholarly men,
men who knew the contents, as well as the commercial value,
of the books they handled.
His grandfather had been a man of note in his calling.
The tradition of Lord Althorp's confidence in him, and of
how he requited it by securing Caxton's "Golden Legend"
for the library of that distinguished collector, under the
very nose of his hot rival, the Duke of Marlborough,
was tenderly cherished as an heirloom in the old shop.
And Thorpe's father, too, though no such single achievement
crowned his memory, had been the adviser and, as one might say,
the friend of many notable writers and patrons of literature.
The son of such forbears needed only money to be recognized
by everybody as a gentleman.
On his mother's side, now that he thought of it,
there was something perhaps better still than a heritage
of librarians' craft and tastes.
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