The Slanderers by Warwick Deeping

JUDITH STRONG had joined Gabriel at The Friary, and Judith was as far removed in soul from the Saltire dames as Aldebaran is from the moon. Saltire needed the magic of Ruskin; it was in its Ice Age, crusted by custom. There were discrepancies in Saltire that would not have shone with splendor upon the pages of _Sesame and Lilies_. For the Cordelias, the Virgilias, the Imogens, Saltire could have proffered Mrs. Marjoy or Mrs. Mince, or even that beglassed Diana, Miss Zinia Snodley of the irreproachable boots.

Of the malignities that sucked leechlike at his honor Gabriel Strong was most honestly ignorant. Many seasons elapse before man reads the unpropitious faces of his fellows, not dowering himself spontaneously with the power of arousing hatred in others. The child's optimism dies slowly, as the white swans change to geese, the foaming chargers to long-eared asses. Envy is the unwilling flattery of the fool. The true man puts forward the shield of power and regains once more the golden age of youth by triumphing godlike over the malice of mediocrity.