For a successful painter, sculptor, musician, author, who takes society by storm, it is no drawback, it is sometimes even a romantic recommendation, to hail from outcasts and profligates.
But for a clergyman of the Church of England! Cornelius, it is fatal! To succeed in the Church, people must believe in you, first of all, as a gentleman, secondly as a man of means, thirdly as a scholar, fourthly as a preacher, fifthly, perhaps, as a Christian,--but always first as a gentleman, with all their heart and soul and strength.

I would have faced the fact of being a small machinist's son, and have taken my chance, if he'd been in any sense respectable and decent.

The essence of Christianity is humility, and by the help of God I would have brazened it out.

But this terrible vagabondage and disreputable connection! If he does not accept my terms and leave the country, it will extinguish us and kill me.

For how can we live, and relinquish our high aim, and bring down our dear sister Rosa to the level of a gipsy's step-daughter ?'.