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job as correspondence clerk; it made his heart sink, but he
set his teeth; there was nothing else to do. Though too shy
to answer the advertisements which demanded a personal
application, he replied to those which asked for letters; but
he had no experience to state and no recommendations: he
was conscious that neither his German nor his French was
commercial; he was ignorant of the terms used in business;
he knew neither shorthand nor typewriting. He could not
help recognising that his case was hopeless. He thought of
writing to the solicitor who had been his father’s executor,
but he could not bring himself to, for it was contrary to his
express advice that he had sold the mortgages in which his
money had been invested. He knew from his uncle that Mr.
Nixon thoroughly disapproved of him. He had gathered
from Philip’s year in the accountant’s office that he was idle
and incompetent.
‘I’d sooner starve,’ Philip muttered to himself.
Once or twice the possibility of suicide presented itself
to him; it would be easy to get something from the hos-
pital dispensary, and it was a comfort to think that if the
worst came to the worst he had at hand means of making
a painless end of himself; but it was not a course that he
considered seriously. When Mildred had left him to go with
Griffiths his anguish had been so great that he wanted to die
in order to get rid of the pain. He did not feel like that now.
He remembered that the Casualty Sister had told him how
people oftener did away with themselves for want of money
than for want of love; and he chuckled when he thought that
he was an exception. He wished only that he could talk his

0 Of Human Bondage