The Seamy Side, by W. Besant and J. Rice. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...dear father, so good, so kind, so noble! Why, I should have thought there was not a single creature of all who knew him in all the world, too low and degraded to acknowledge his goodness. It made other people good, while he lived, only to be with him and near him. It made me good, then.' 'You are always good, Alison.' She shook her head sadly. 'I am always full of regrets, of wicked thoughts, Gilbert. I used to be good, when you fell in love with me. That was the reason, I suppose.' She would have no recognition of an engagement, and yet she spoke to her lover frankly. There was no doubt, at all events, in her own mind. Gilbert loved her. If she could, she would marry him. She trusted and she distrusted with the same entire abandonment. To trust in full, to doubt and distrust in full, came from her Spanish blood. She was like the Sefiora, her grandmother, in mind as well as in face. 'Do you mean that I fell in love with you because you were good?' asked Gilbert, laughing. 'No, it was not that. I do not think that a man asks himself when he falls in love, whether the girl is very good; she seems good to her lover; he believes in her goodness; if he did not, he would persuade himself that he could make her good. I suppose that after marriage husbands like their wives to be good tempered, at least. Before, it does not matter so much.' 'It is wonderful, ' said Alison, 'how men ever fall in love with girls at all.' 'Do not disparage your sex, ' said Gilbert. 'Oh! we are weak. We can do nothing by ourselves; we take our ideas from men; we look to men for our religion, our manners, our thoughts. And yet men fall down at a woman's feet and worship her. As for me, there has been nothing good in me at all since the day when my uncle told me--what he...