It must be remembered
that he had never hitherto felt the check of importunate debt,
and he walked by habit, not by self-criticism. But the check had come.
Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed,
disgusted that conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully
disconnected with the objects he cared to occupy himself with,
should have lain in ambush and clutched him when he was unaware.
And there was not only the actual debt; there was the certainty
that in his present position he must go on deepening it.
Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing, whose bills had been incurred
before his marriage, and whom uncalculated current expenses had
ever since prevented him from paying, had repeatedly sent him
unpleasant letters which had forced themselves on his attention.
This could hardly have been more galling to any disposition than
to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of asking a favor
or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned even to form
conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters, and nothing
but extremity could have induced him to apply to his father-in-law,
even if he had not been made aware in various indirect ways since
his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not flourishing,
and that the expectation of help from him would be resented.
Some men easily trust in the readiness of friends; it had never in
the former part of his life occurred to Lydgate that he should need
to do so: he had never thought what borrowing would be to him;
but now that the idea had entered his mind, he felt that he would
rather incur any other hardship.
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