Armstrong says of Master Gammon,—"There's nothing to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not interrupted at it."
Then there are the unsentimental egoists, attached to the selfish and domineering wing of egoism. They are less amenable to satire, being less deceptive by nature, and more prone to tyranny and cruelty, thereby deserving rebuke without humor. This class is represented by Paul Dombey, Barnes Newcome, Tom Tulliver, and others from the author of the last. This is another favorite type with Eliot, the self-willed sharing honors with the self-indulgent. Grandcourt "meant to be master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who perhaps would have been capable of mastering another man." Tito Melema "felt that Romola was a more unforgiving woman than he had imagined; her love was not that sweet, clinging instinct, stronger than all judgments, which, he began to see now, made the great charm of a wife." Harold Transome, who "had a padded yoke ready for the neck of every man, woman, and child that depended on him," makes the alarming discovery about Esther that a lightning "shot out of her now and then, which seemed the sign of a dangerous judgment; as if she inwardly saw something more admirable than Harold Transome. Now, to be perfectly charming, a woman should not see this." Meredith portrays this irresponsible selfishness in Roy Richmond, Lord Ormont, and Lord Fleetwood; and defines it in Sir Austin's Pilgrim's Scrip, which says that sentimentalists "are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done."[1]
- ↑ Sentimentalism is further described as "a happy pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and the heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything to forfeit." Richard Feverel, 220.
