The whirlpool![...] It's got hold of me, and I'm going down, old man — and it looks black as hell. - George Gissing

Refuge from despair is often found in the passion of self-pity and that spirit of obstinate resistance which it engenders.

CHAPTER I Table of Contents
NORTHERNERS IN SUNLIGHT Table of Contents
By a window looking from Posillipo upon the Bay of Naples sat an English lady, engaged in letter-writing. She was only in her four-and-twentieth year,

Exquisite as an artistic product of Society, she affected the imagination not so much by her personal charm as through the perfume of luxury which breathed about her. Egremont, with his radical tendencies of thought, found himself marvelling as he regarded her; what a life was hers! Compare it with that of some little work-girl in Lambeth, such as he saw in the street — what spaces between those two worlds!