She had wanted Aaron to be a schoolteacher.

He had served three years apprenticeship, then suddenly thrown it up and gone to the pit.
"But why ?" said Josephine.
"I couldn't tell you.

I felt more like it." He had a curious quality of an intelligent, almost sophisticated mind, which had repudiated education.

On purpose he kept the midland accent in his speech.

He understood perfectly what a personification was--and an allegory.