To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey
by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and
disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would
accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his
usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.
'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of conversation
one day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the
marriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you know already.'
'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely know
how.' 'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or
a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided
for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to
do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.'
Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took him up.
'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a
beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.' ('Is there
much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt ashamed of
himself.) 'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal
good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my
childish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to
a public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here
without them, and thus I am a disappointed man.'
Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself),
was this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station
which the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having
already carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful
or a promising thing anywhere?
'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud. 'Hang it, no; not
bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not worth that--though they are
charming fellows, and I have the greatest affection for them. Besides,
it's pleasant to show them that I can do without them, and that they may
all go to the Devil. And besides, again, most men are disappointed in
life, somehow or other, and influenced by their disappointment. But it's
a dear good world, and I love it!'
'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur.
'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and by
Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it.
It's the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings,
isn't it?' 'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam.