-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own soul, one
shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows for ever rising again, Tom
was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial
obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests. So it has been since the days of
Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses: inside the gates, the women with
streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat
from afar, filling their long, empty days with memories and fears: outside, the
men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the
stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of wounds in the
hurrying ardour of action.
    From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you would
prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished: the wagers are likely to
be on his side, notwithstanding his small success in the classics. For Tom had
never desired success in this field of enterprise; and for getting a fine
flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a
good amount of subjects in which it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will
bound together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his personal
ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts and surmounting
discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him closely, soon began to
conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud that he had brought into the
employment of the firm a nephew who appeared to be made of such good commercial
stuff. The real kindness of placing him in the warehouse first was soon evident
to Tom, in the hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might
perhaps be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm various
vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in this place; and
it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr. Deane, when he expected to
take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step in and sit with him an hour, and
would pass that hour in much lecturing and catechising concerning articles of
export and import, with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the
relative advantages to the merchants of St Ogg's of having goods brought in
their own and in foreign bottoms - a subject on which Mr. Deane, as a shipowner,
naturally threw off a few sparks when he got warmed with talk and wine. Already,
in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but
