Excerpt from The Brute The room in which they sat reflected in its furnish ings much of the life these two led. It seemed to suggest, in every line, an unceasing conflict between poverty and ambition - not, indeed, the poverty of the really poor, of those in actual want, but the poverty of the well born, of those whose desires are forever infinitely beyond their means. This was evidenced by many curious contrasts. The furniture, for instance, was for the most part of that cheap and gloomy variety known as mission oak, yet the designs were good, as though its purchasers had striven toward some ideal which they had not the means to realize. The rug on the floor, an imita tion oriental, was still of excellent coloring; the pic tures showed taste in their selection - such taste, indeed, as is possible under the limitations imposed by a slender purse among them might have been discovered a charming little water-color and some reproductions of etchings by Whistler. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.