 become
occasionally historical and argumentative, and Mr. Spray, the Independent
minister, had begun to preach political sermons, in which he distinguished with
much subtlety between his fervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the
franchise and his fervent belief in their eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray's
hearers, however, were incapable of following his subtleties, and many
old-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his »siding with the Catholics;«
while others thought he had better let politics alone. Public spirit was not
held in high esteem at St Ogg's, and men who busied themselves with political
questions were regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters: they were
usually persons who had little or no business of their own to manage, or, if
they had, were likely enough to become insolvent.
    This was the general aspect of things at St Ogg's in Mrs. Glegg's day, and
at that particular period in her family history when she had had her quarrel
with Mr. Tulliver. It was a time when ignorance was much more comfortable than
at present, and was received with all the honours in very good society, without
being obliged to dress itself in an elaborate costume of knowledge; a time when
cheap periodicals were not, and when country surgeons never thought of asking
their female patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took it for
granted that they preferred gossip; a time when ladies in rich silk gowns wore
large pockets, in which they carried a mutton-bone to secure them against cramp.
Mrs. Glegg carried such a bone, which she had inherited from her grandmother
with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty, like a suit of armour, and a
silver-headed walking-stick; for the Dodson family had been respectable for many
generations.
    Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlour in her excellent house at St
Ogg's, so that she had two points of view from which she could observe the
weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce her thankfulness for her own
exceptional strength of mind. From her front windows she could look down the
Tofton Road, leading out of St Ogg's, and note the growing tendency to »gadding
about« in the wives of men not retired from business, together with a practice
of wearing woven cotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the coming
generation; and from her back windows she could look down the pleasant garden
and orchard which stretched to the river, and observe the folly of Mr. Glegg in
spending his time among »them
