Such a course could only bring him into the contempt of his fellow-men.

He became a nonentity.

No one had any respect for or confidence in him.

Otherwise, possibly, he might have obtained powerful help, for the memory of what his family had been had not yet died out.
Men saw that he lived and worked as a labourer; they gave him no credit for the work, but they despised him for the meanness and churlishness of his life.

There was neither a piano nor a decanter of sherry in his house.
He was utterly out of accord with the times.