It was almost base in its coldness and mercenary calculation.

That phrase about the "useless untruth" implied even a dubious and considering morality; and the conclusion, "we must not entail misery upon others as well as ourselves by a too hasty step," argued a nature cautious in the extreme.
Yet Mr.Gaskell was too evidently a man of the world, knowing in his ripe experience that there existed a sufficient number of such cold natures to warrant the obtrusion of this heart-rending formula; and I doubt not that these negative specimens of the possible alone restrained my namesake from going beyond mere copies of that first letter.
It will be seen that the influence of Mrs.Potts pervaded our utmost social and commercial limits.

And when the "Compendium" had become a centre-table ornament in the homes of the rich, and a bulky object of awe in humbler abodes, she went over the ground again with other volumes calculated to serve her double purpose, from "Dr.Chase's Receipt Book" to "Picturesque Italy, profusely Illustrated." She also purveyed a line of "art-pieces," including "Wide Awake and Fast Asleep," "The Monarch of the Glen," "Woman Gathering Fagots," and "Retreat from Moscow." Also, little Roscoe, out of school hours, took subscriptions for the _Youth's Companion_.
Yet the town long bore it with a gentle fortitude.

I believe it was not until the following spring that murmurs were really noticeable.
Naturally they were directed against Solon Denney.

By that time Westley Keyts was greeting Solon morosely, though without open cavil; but Asa Bundy no longer hesitated to speak out.