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ed his face on his hands. It deeply touched and at the same
time surprised him. He was astonished at its religious tone,
which seemed to him neither mawkish nor sentimental. He
knew nothing of his mother, dead now for nearly twenty
years, but that she was beautiful, and it was strange to learn
that she was simple and pious. He had never thought of that
side of her. He read again what she said about him, what she
expected and thought about him; he had turned out very
differently; he looked at himself for a moment; perhaps it
was better that she was dead. Then a sudden impulse caused
him to tear up the letter; its tenderness and simplicity made
it seem peculiarly private; he had a queer feeling that there
was something indecent in his reading what exposed his
mother’s gentle soul. He went on with the Vicar’s dreary
correspondence.
A few days later he went up to London, and for the first
time for two years entered by day the hall of St. Luke’s Hos-
pital. He went to see the secretary of the Medical School; he
was surprised to see him and asked Philip curiously what
he had been doing. Philip’s experiences had given him a
certain confidence in himself and a different outlook upon
many things: such a question would have embarrassed
him before; but now he answered coolly, with a deliberate
vagueness which prevented further inquiry, that private af-
fairs had obliged him to make a break in the curriculum;
he was now anxious to qualify as soon as possible. The first
examination he could take was in midwifery and the dis-
eases of women, and he put his name down to be a clerk in
the ward devoted to feminine ailments; since it was holiday

1 Of Human Bondage