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‘It’s very rough,’ said Athelny, but he gave it to Philip with
an alacrity which suggested that he was eager for him to
read it.
It was written in pencil, in a fine but very peculiar hand-
writing, which was hard to read: it was just like black letter.
‘Doesn’t it take you an awful time to write like that? It’s
wonderful.’
‘I don’t know why handwriting shouldn’t be beautiful.’
Philip read the first verse:

In an obscure night
With anxious love inflamed
O happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest...

Philip looked curiously at Thorpe Athelny. He did not
know whether he felt a little shy with him or was attracted
by him. He was conscious that his manner had been slightly
patronising, and he flushed as it struck him that Athelny
might have thought him ridiculous.
‘What an unusual name you’ve got,’ he remarked, for
something to say.
‘It’s a very old Yorkshire name. Once it took the head
of my family a day’s hard riding to make the circuit of his
estates, but the mighty are fallen. Fast women and slow
horses.’
He was short-sighted and when he spoke looked at you
with a peculiar intensity. He took up his volume of poetry.

Of Human Bondage