 one cause amongst others, which he had generously but
mistakenly avoided mentioning to Rosamond, lest it should affect her health and
spirits. Between him and her indeed there was that total missing of each other's
mental track, which is too evidently possible even between persons who are
continually thinking of each other. To Lydgate it seemed that he had been
spending month after month in sacrificing more than half of his best intent and
best power to his tenderness for Rosamond; bearing her little claims and
interruptions without impatience, and, above all, bearing without betrayal of
bitterness to look through less and less of interfering illusion at the blank
unreflecting surface her mind presented to his ardour for the more impersonal
ends of his profession and his scientific study, an ardour which he had fancied
that the ideal wife must somehow worship as sublime, though not in the least
knowing why. But his endurance was mingled with a self-discontent which, if we
know how to be candid, we shall confess to make more than half our bitterness
under grievances, wife or husband included. It always remains true that if we
had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us. Lydgate
was aware that his concessions to Rosamond were often little more than the lapse
of slackening resolution, the creeping paralysis apt to seize an enthusiasm
which is out of adjustment to a constant portion of our lives. And on Lydgate's
enthusiasm there was constantly pressing not a simple weight of sorrow, but the
biting presence of a petty degrading care, such as casts the blight of irony
over all higher effort.
    This was the care which he had hitherto abstained from mentioning to
Rosamond; and he believed, with some wonder, that it had never entered her mind,
though certainly no difficulty could be less mysterious. It was an inference
with a conspicuous handle to it, and had been easily drawn by indifferent
observers, that Lydgate was in debt; and he could not succeed in keeping out of
his mind for long together that he was every day getting deeper into that swamp,
which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure.
It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there - in a condition in
which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had
a scheme of the universe in his soul.
    Eighteen months ago Lydgate was poor, but had never known the eager want of
small sums, and felt rather a burning contempt for any one who descended a step
in order to gain them. He was now experiencing something worse than a simple
deficit:
