Book 3 - Chapter 5

Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster

The next day, at ten o'clock, Tom was on his way to St. Ogg's, to see
his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said;
and Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person
to ask for advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way
of business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had
risen in the world on a scale of advancement which accorded with Tom's
ambition.

It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,--one of
those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And
Tom was very unhappy; he felt the humiliation as well as the
prospective hardships of his lot with all the keenness of a proud
nature; and with all his resolute dutifulness toward his father there
mingled an irrepressible indignation against him which gave misfortune
the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the
consequences of going to law, his father was really blamable, as his
aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant
indication of Tom's character, that though he thought his aunts ought
to do something more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggie's
violent resentment against them for showing no eager tenderness and
generosity. There were no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what
did not present itself to him as a right to be demanded. Why should
people give away their money plentifully to those who had not taken
care of their own money? Tom saw some justice in severity; and all the
more, because he had confidence in himself that he should never
deserve that just severity. It was very hard upon him that he should
be put at this disadvantage in life by his father's want of prudence;
but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people because
they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help
him, more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not
without his hopes to take refuge in under the chill damp imprisonment
of the December fog, which seemed only like a part of his home
troubles. At sixteen, the mind that has the strongest affinity for
fact cannot escape illusion and self-flattery; and Tom, in sketching
his future, had no other guide in arranging his facts than the
suggestions of his own brave self-reliance. Both Mr. Glegg and Mr.
Deane, he knew, had been very poor once; he did not want to save money
slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he
would be like his uncle Deane--get a situation in some great house of
business and rise fast. He had scarcely seen anything of his uncle
Deane for the last three years--the two families had been getting
wider apart; but for this very reason