It had not dawned upon him yet that he was not unfortunate, but unworthy.
The gain of such a conviction is to a man enough to outweigh infinitely any loss that even his unworthiness can have caused him; for it involves some perception of the worthiness of the truth, and makes way for the utter consolation which the birth of that truth in himself will bring.

As yet Mr.Galbraith was but overwhelmed with care for a self which, so far as he had to do with the making of it, was of small value indeed, although in the possibility, which is the birthright of every creature, it was, not less than that of the wretchedest of dog-licked Lazaruses, of a value by himself unsuspected and inappreciable.

That he should behave so cruelly to his one child, was not unnatural to that self with which he was so much occupied: failure had weakened that command of behaviour which so frequently gains the credit belonging only to justice and kindness, and a temper which never was good, but always feeling the chain, was ready at once to show its ugly teeth.

He was a proud man, whose pride was always catching cold from his heart.

He might have lived a hundred years in the same house with a child that was not his own, without feeling for her a single movement of affection.
The servants found more change in him than Ginevra did; his relations with them, if not better conceived than his paternal ones, had been less evidently defective.