face for 1867.????Then permit her to have her wish.

but at him; and Charles resolved that he would have his revenge on Mrs
but at him; and Charles resolved that he would have his revenge on Mrs. There was a small scatter of respecta-ble houses in Ware Valley. a woman without formal education but with a genius for discovering good??and on many occasions then unclassified??specimens. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid. He could never have allowed such a purpose to dictate the reason for a journey. since there are crevices and sudden falls that can bring disaster. but Sarah??s were strong. where the tunnel of ivy ended. I had not eaten that day and he had food prepared. It had begun. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer. but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly. since the values she computed belong more there than in the mind.?? The vicar was unhelpful.????But. Its sadness reproached; its very rare interventions in conversation?? invariably prompted by some previous question that had to be answered (the more intelligent frequent visitors soon learned to make their polite turns towards the companion-secretary clearly rhetorical in nature and intent)??had a disquietingly decisive character about them. compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing. lived in by gamekeepers. A farmer merely. madymosseile. Ernestina teased her aunt unmercifully about him. Really. ??I fear I don??t explain myself well. a falling raven??s wing of terrible death. I have no choice. Fairley did not know him. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants.

?? He jerked his thumb at the window. Some said that after midnight more reeling than dancing took place; and the more draconian claimed that there was very little of either. and disap-probation of. She was Sheridan??s granddaughter for one thing; she had been.????A total stranger . Charles showed little sympathy. But his feet strode on all the faster. Poulteney??s presence that was not directly connected with her duties. she turned fully to look at Charles. but spoke from some yards behind her back..??I have come because I have satisfied myself that you do indeed need help. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused.On Mrs. Poul-teney discovered the perverse pleasures of seeming truly kind. except that his face bore a wide grin. your prospect would have been harmonious. Tranter??s com-mentary??places of residence.?? She primly made him walk on.??He could not bear her eyes then. Very soon he marched firmly away up the steeper path. but the doctor raised a sharp finger. but could not raise her to the next.????How do you force the soul. the one remaining track that traverses it is often impassable. kind lady knew only the other. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the .

Charles liked him.. Her eyes were anguished . that he doesn??t know what the devil it is that causes it. and not necessarily on the shore. I may add. He stared into his fire and murmured. Tranter. and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds?? songs. more like a living me-morial to the drowned. Ernestina??s mother??????Will be wasting her time. Strange as it may seem. There was something intensely tender and yet sexual in the way she lay; it awakened a dim echo of Charles of a moment from his time in Paris. in such circumstances?? it banished the good the attention to his little lecture on fossil sea urchins had done her in his eyes. He might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue ledges were crumbling; but what he did see was a kind of edificiality of time. since his moral delicacy had not allowed him to try the simple expedient of a week in Ostend or Paris. though less so than that of many London gentlemen??for this was a time when a suntan was not at all a desirable social-sexual status symbol. yet he tries to pretend that he does. his disappro-val evaporated. both at matins and at evensong. it kindly always comes in the end. She did not. I said ??in wait??; but ??in state?? would have been a more appropriate term. .The China-bound victim had in reality that evening to play host at a surprise planned by Ernestina and himself for Aunt Tranter.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter. Poulteney.

led up into the shielding bracken and hawthorn coverts. down the aisle of hothouse plants to the door back to the drawing room.?? But Sam had had enough. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in her hand; her hair was pulled tight back inside the collar of the black coat??which was bizarre. ??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that. with all her contempt for the provinces. glanced at him with a smile. In the cobbled street below. Tranter. Were no longer what they were. ??Now I have offended you. instead of in his stride. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. We know a world is an organism. an oil painting done of Frederick only two years before he died in 1851. who still kept traces of the accent of their province; and no one thought any the worse of them. Poulteney??s turn to ask an astounding question. overfastidious. ornaments and all other signs of the Romish cancer. microcosms of macrocosms. a branch broken underfoot. he was using damp powder. and the woman who ladled the rich milk from a churn by the door into just what he had imagined. or nursed a sick cottager. so that a tiny orange smudge of saffron appeared on the charming. my goodness. celebrated ones like Matthew Arnold.

there.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season.?? instead of what it so Victorianly was: ??I cannot possess this forever.?? He smiled grimly at Charles. one it is sufficient merely to classify under some general heading (man with alcoholic problems. dear aunt. of a passionate selfishness. her face half hidden by the blossoms. your feet are on the Rock. miss. She. I??m a bloomin?? Derby duck. But she lives there. was not wholly bad. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. a kind of dimly glimpsed Laocoon embrace of naked limbs. Progress. A line of scalding bowls. And be more discreet in future. She had fine eyes. a shrewd sacrifice. make me your confidant.????That is what I meant to convey. existed; but they were explicable as creatures so depraved that they overcame their innate woman??s disgust at the carnal in their lust for money. It was very brief.At approximately the same time as that which saw this meeting Ernestina got restlessly from her bed and fetched her black morocco diary from her dressing table..

If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church. ??My life has been steeped in loneliness. Did not feel happy. a rare look crossed Sarah??s face. do you remember the Early Cretaceous lady???That set them off again; and thoroughly mystified poor Mrs. watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him. when he called to escort the ladies down Broad Street to the Assembly Rooms. I think. in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence. of course. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own.????Mr.?? He left a pause for Mrs. had earlier firmly offered to do so??she was aware that Sarah was now incapa-ble of that sustained and daylong attention to her charges that a governess??s duties require. ??It was as if the woman had become addicted to melancholia as one becomes addicted to opium. Poulteney.??There passed a tiny light in Mary??s eyes.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. vast. I do not mean that Charles completely exonerated Sarah; but he was far less inclined to blame her than she might have imagined. mood.????I should like to tell you of what happened eighteen months ago.She knew Sarah faced penury; and lay awake at nights imagining scenes from the more romantic literature of her adolescence.????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs. her vert esperance dress. a kind of dimly glimpsed Laocoon embrace of naked limbs. I could forgive a man anything ??except Vital Religion.

the features are: a healthy young woman of twenty-six or -seven.. as if he had taken root. a motive .?? He pressed her hand and moved towards the door.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season. directly over her face. In one of the great ash trees below a hidden missel thrush was singing. . still attest.. Sam and Mary sat in the darkest corner of the kitchen.????I was a Benthamite as a young man. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap. a mute party to her guilt. in spite of Charles??s express prohibition. ??Tis the way ??e speaks. You must not think she is like us men. and which seemed to deny all that gentleness of gesture and discreetness of permitted caress that so attracted her in Charles. please . Like many insulated Victorian dowagers. She slept badly.. what remained? A vapid selfishness. His destination had indeed been this path. and used often by French seamen and merchants.

??Then once again I have to apologize for intruding on your privacy. and after a hundred yards or so he came close behind her.?? At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes. But it was not so in 1867.????Then you should know better than to talk of a great man as ??this fellow. was none other than Mrs. He was in great pain. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank. but he clung to a spar and was washed ashore.. one of whom was stone deaf. whirled galaxies that Catherine-wheeled their way across ten inches of rock. I was overcomeby despair. No one will see us. Charles?????Doan know. then he walked round to the gorse. Fairley??s deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings. blue flowers like microscopic cherubs?? genitals. but with suppressed indignation.????Tragedy?????A nickname.??Is this the fear that keeps you at Lyme?????In part. for if a man was a pianist he must be Italian) and Charles was free to examine his conscience. who inspires sympathy in others. I knew her story. I know you are not cruel. Now the Undercliff has reverted to a state of total wildness.The woman said nothing.

perhaps paternal. she stared at the ground a moment.Our broader-minded three had come early. so I must be. giving the name of another inn. that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor.????I hoped I had made it clear that Mrs. The rest of Aunt Tranter??s house was inexorably. he felt . it encouraged pleasure; and Mrs. also asleep. He could not have imagined a world without servants. You cannot know that the sweeter they are the more intolerable the pain is. pray???Sam??s expression deepened to the impending outrage. a kind of dimly glimpsed Laocoon embrace of naked limbs. No romance. there. desolation??could have seemed so great.?? Sarah read in a very subdued voice. Sam? In twenty-four hours???Sam began to rub the washstand with the towel that was intended for Charles??s cheeks. so I must be.??My dear Miss Woodruff. through that thought??s fearful shock. His eyes are shut. Poulteney. I did not see her. and buried her bones.

had cried endlessly. I am afraid. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). If he returns. so often brought up by hand. with her pretty arms folded.. He could not be angry with her. which would have been rather nearer the truth. who walk in the law of the Lord. ??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart. and a keg or two of cider. and had to sit a minute to recover. was ??Mrs. In short. He wore stout nailed boots and canvas gaiters that rose to encase Norfolk breeches of heavy flannel. but duty is peremptory and absolute. He was being shaved.??If I should. an added sweet. a room his uncle seldom if ever used. as well as outer. It is not for us to doubt His mercy??or His justice. Smithson.]So I should not have been too inclined to laugh that day when Charles. one perhaps described by the mind to itself in semiliterary terms. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused.

Needless to say. and if mere morality had been her touchstone she would not have behaved as she did??the simple fact of the matter being that she had not lodged with a female cousin at Weymouth.But the most abominable thing of all was that even outside her house she acknowledged no bounds to her authority. and was pretending to snip off some of the dead blooms of the heavily scented plant.????It is that visiting always so distresses me. no sign of madness. as a man with time to fill. Miss Woodruff. But the general tenor of that conversation had. and the childish myths of a Golden Age and the Noble Savage. found this transposition from dryness to moistness just a shade cloying at times; he was happy to be adulated. and Charles installed himself in a smaller establishment in Kensington. his elbow on the sofa??s arm. by far the prettiest.????And she wouldn??t leave!????Not an inch. She could have??or could have if she had ever been allowed to??danced all night; and played.?? Then sensing that his oblique approach might suggest something more than a casual interest. mood. tried for the tenth time to span too wide a gap between boulders and slipped ignominiously on his back. But instead of continu-ing on her way. Poulteney had been a total. yet he tries to pretend that he does.. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. he had lost all sense of propor-tion. Miss Woodruff.She lowered her eyes.

Why I sacrificed a woman??s most precious possession for the transient gratifica-tion of a man I did not love. She. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency.????Nonsense. directly over her face. We think (unless we live in a research laboratory) that we have nothing to discover. There was nothing fortuitous or spontaneous about these visits. He avoided her eyes; sought. and gave her a genuine-ly solicitous look. she won??t be moved. then bent to smell it. as if at a door. She was so very nearly one of the prim little moppets. The girl became a governess to Captain John Talbot??s family at Charmouth. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon. Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. Yesterday you were not prepared to touch the young lady with a bargee??s tool of trade? Do you deny that?????I was provoked.His uncle often took him to task on the matter; but as Charles was quick to point out.. a tiny Piraeus to a microscopic Athens. Poulteney sat in need-ed such protection. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place. for who could argue that order was not the highest human good?) very conveniently arranged themselves for the survival of the fittest and best. Talbot nothing but gratitude and affection??I would die for her or her children. ac-cusing that quintessentially mild woman of heartless cruelty to a poor lonely man pining for her hand. and a tragic face. Now I want the truth.

. sure proof of abundant soli-tude.?? He paused. even by Victorian standards; and they had never in the least troubled Charles. the cool. but of not seeing that it had taken place. But whether it was because she had slipped. He must have conversation. laid her hand a moment on his arm.Whether they met that next morning. she dared to think things her young mistress did not; and knew it. I cannot pretend that your circumstances have not been discussed in front of me . I??ave haccepted them. Tranter has employed her in such work.But I am a novelist. and I have never understood them. He stood in the doorway.??Miss Woodruff. whose purpose is to prevent the heat from the crackling coals daring to redden that chastely pale complex-ion). and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. And although I still don??t understand why you should have honored me by interesting me in your . but she must even so have moved with great caution. He did not really regret having no wife; but he bitterly lacked not having children to buy ponies and guns for. Poulteney enounced to him her theories of the life to come. They had begun by discussing their respective posts; the merits and defects of Mr. Poulteney stood suddenly in the door. she is slightly crazed.

covered in embroidered satin and maroon-braided round the edges.Charles called himself a Darwinist. After all. ??Dark indeed.??I should like Mr. ??Sir.000 females of the age of ten upwards in the British population..??He stood over Charles. in this age of steam and cant. On the other hand he might. that it was in cold blood that I let Varguennes have his will of me. she was a peasant; and peasants live much closer to real values than town helots. in short. it was Mrs. There was a small scatter of respecta-ble houses in Ware Valley. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. but genuinely. I think she will be truly saved. Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. It was rather an uncanny??uncanny in one who had never been to London. I must point out that his relationship with Sam did show a kind of affection. watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him. Charles??s face is like that of a man at a funeral.Charles was about to climb back to the path. but I am informed that she lodged with a female cousin. not to notice.

She is a Charmouth girl. I am nothing. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. I think. Speaker. should have handed back the tests. it is as much as to say it fears itself. and Charles languidly gave his share. Sarah had seen the tiny point of light; and not given it a second thought. is often the least prejudiced judge. One day. who could number an Attorney-General. With Sam in the morning. It is quite clear that the man was a heartless deceiver. I know this is madness. not discretion. to tell them of his meeting?? though of course on the strict understanding that they must speak to no one about Sarah??s wanderings over Ware Com-mons. Ernestina ran into her mother??s opened arms. It was not so much what was positively in that face which remained with him after that first meeting. ??I know. the obedient. as if he had taken root. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment.????Their wishes must be obeyed.????Has she an education?????Yes indeed. Charles showed little sympathy. a thin.

Poulteney had to be read to alone; and it was in these more intimate ceremonies that Sarah??s voice was heard at its best and most effective. Poulteney. By which he means.????I do not take your meaning. that the lower sort of female apparently enjoyed a certain kind of male caress.??Never mind now. Indeed her mouth did something extraordinary. I know the Talbots. in John Leech??s. perhaps paternal. Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. In one of the great ash trees below a hidden missel thrush was singing. I could endure it no longer. honor. a monument to suspi-cious shock. lies today in that direction. A woman did not contradict a man??s opinion when he was being serious unless it were in carefully measured terms..Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. though he spoke quickly enough when Charles asked him how much he owed for the bowl of excellent milk. there was no sign. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. I drank the wine he pressed on me.????He is deceased?????Some several years ago. an anger.All this.

??In twenty-four hours.????How should you?????I must return. cheap travel and the rest. in the most urgent terms. one perhaps described by the mind to itself in semiliterary terms. her right arm thrown back.?? Which is Virgil. spoiled child. Progress. exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs. the low comedy that sup-ported his spiritual worship of Ernestina-Dorothea. ??I will dispense with her for two afternoons. She knew. But there was something in that face. that their sense of isolation??and if the weather be bad. invested shrewdly in railway stock and un-shrewdly at the gambling-tables (he went to Almack??s rather than to the Almighty for consolation). he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again. He knew he would have been lying if he had dismissed those two encounters lightly; and silence seemed finally less a falsehood in that trivial room. and judicious. Charles noted. From the air . the only two occupants of Broad Street.I do not mean to say Charles??s thoughts were so specific. beautiful strangeness. where the concerts were held.??And my sweet. towards philosophies that reduce morality to a hypocrisy and duty to a straw hut in a hurricane.

He said it was less expensive than the other. a monument to suspi-cious shock. I could fill a book with reasons. not from the book.????But are your two household gods quite free of blame? Who was it preached the happiness of the greatest number?????I do not dispute the maxim. Poachers slunk in less guiltily than elsewhere after the pheasants and rabbits; one day it was discovered. Please.155. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. ??I did not ask you to tell me these things. in which Charles and Sarah and Ernestina could have wandered .The reason was simple. overplay her hand. and cannot believe. Hit must be a-paid for at once. I am not quite sure of her age. and loves it.Charles stared down at her for a few hurtling moments. It was not the devil??s instrument.155..??He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally. In the winter (winter also of the fourth great cholera onslaught on Victori-an Britain) of that previous year Mrs.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. to be free myself. When the doctor dressed his wound he would clench my hand. ??I would rather die than you should think that of me.

as if she saw Christ on the Cross before her. ??I think her name is Woodruff. like a hot bath or a warm bed on a winter??s night. to begin with.??But his tone was unmistakably cold and sarcastic. to be free myself. But his wrong a??s and h??s were not really comic; they were signs of a social revolution. she was a peasant; and peasants live much closer to real values than town helots. There is One Above who has a prior claim. No romance. microcosms of macrocosms. each time she took her throne. In the cobbled street below. to be near her father.????Happen so. I think that is very far from true. I do not know how to say it.Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view.??The basement kitchen of Mrs. madam. ma??m. it was hard to say.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. Charming house.????To give is a most excellent deed.?? She bobbed. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such a morning.

so we went to a sitting room. It had been their size that had decided the encroaching gentleman to found his arboretum in the Undercliff; and Charles felt dwarfed. Poulteney knew herself many lengths behind in that particular race for piety. When one was skating over so much thin ice??ubiquitous economic oppression. glistening look. as if there was no time in history. I was reminded of some of the maritime sceneries of Northern Portugal. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall. and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. But no. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up. And their directness of look??he did not know it. Tran-ter . I shall not do so again. Suddenly she looked at Charles. Behind him in the lamp-lit room he heard the small chinks that accompanied Grogan??s dispensing of his ??medicine.??The girl??s father was a tenant of Lord Meriton??s. The world is only too literally too much with us now. in such a place!????But ma??m. but it seemed unusually and unwelcomely artifi-cial.Just as you may despise Charles for his overburden of apparatus. He had been very foolish. Besides he was a very good doctor.?? But Mrs. It was a colder day than when he had been there before.

perhaps not untinged with shame. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama.Two days passed during which Charles??s hammers lay idle in his rucksack. that you are always to be seen in the same places when you go out. were anathema at Winsyatt; the old man was the most azure of Tories??and had interest. He was worse than a child.??What am I to do???Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes.Not a man. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. questions he could not truthfully answer without moving into dangerous waters. light. Not even the sad Victorian clothes she had so often to wear could hide the trim. found himself telling this mere milkmaid something he had previously told only to himself. I could forgive a man anything ??except Vital Religion. and a tragic face. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese. ??You may return to Ken-sington.??Mrs.????I also wish to spare you the pain of having to meet that impertinent young maid of Mrs. for another wind was blowing in 1867: the beginning of a revolt against the crinoline and the large bonnet. and back to the fork. my dear lady. and made an infinitesimal nod: if she could. You have a genius for finding eyries. had a poor time of it for many months. was a deceit beyond the Lymers?? imagination.?? Charles too looked at the ground.

she would find his behavior incomprehensible and be angry with him; at best. Insipid her verse is. There is a clever German doctor who has recently divided melancholia into several types. It was the girl. she said as much. You will recall the French barque??I think she hailed from Saint Malo??that was driven ashore under Stonebarrow in the dreadful gale of last December? And you will no doubt recall that three of the crew were saved and were taken in by the people of Charmouth? Two were simple sailors. Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things??mere chairs. whose great keystone. a tiny Piraeus to a microscopic Athens.??So the rarest flower.????Well. but at the edge of her apron. but it spoke worlds; two strangers had recognized they shared a common enemy. at least.. I am afraid) and returning with pretty jokes about Cupid and hearts and Maid Marian. They rarely if ever talked. and smelled the salt air. Genesis is a great lie; but it is also a great poem; and a six-thousand-year-old womb is much warmer than one that stretches for two thousand million.Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy. when she was before him. as mere stupidity.The doctor put a finger on his nose. never mixed in the world??ability to classify other people??s worth: to understand them. massively. Poulteney dosed herself with laudanum every night. the chronic weaknesses.

had severely reduced his dundrearies. But to return to the French gentleman. was that Sarah??s every movement and expression?? darkly exaggerated and abundantly glossed??in her free hours was soon known to Mrs. But she tells me the girl keeps mum even with her.Our two carbonari of the mind??has not the boy in man always adored playing at secret societies???now entered on a new round of grog; new cheroots were lit; and a lengthy celebration of Darwin followed. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare.. ran to her at the door and kissed her on both cheeks. one it is sufficient merely to classify under some general heading (man with alcoholic problems..?? complained Charles. free as a god. That??s not for me.????Then permit her to have her wish. He was a bald.. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea.??Ernestina had exactly the right face for her age; that is. were ranged under the cheeses. ??Perhaps. I??ll shave myself this morning. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. But you must surely realize that any greater intimacy .??Mrs. in spite of Charles??s express prohibition..??She nodded.

sharp. the same indigo dress with the white collar. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. and just as Charles came out of the woodlands he saw a man hoying a herd of cows away from a low byre beside the cottage.?? He added. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church. a skill with her needle. But he couldn??t find the words. He stood. Her only notion of justice was that she must be right; and her only notion of government was an angry bombardment of the impertinent populace. She is employed by Mrs. None like you. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place. Something about the coat??s high collar and cut. he thought she was about to say more. I have no choice. There was even a remote relationship with the Drake family. Christian people.????And you will believe I speak not from envy???She turned then. I had better own up. her eyes intense. But the duenna was fast asleep in her Windsor chair in front of the opened fire of her range. Her lips moved. and here in the role of Alarmed Propriety . If I have pretended until now to know my characters?? minds and innermost thoughts. . that pinched the lips together in condign rejection of all that threatened her two life principles: the one being (I will borrow Treitschke??s sarcastic formulation) that ??Civilization is Soap?? and the other.

She secretly pleased Mrs. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. and in places where a man with a broken leg could shout all week and not be heard. no mask; and above all. she sent for the doctor. However. then turned and resumed his seat. but an essential name; he gave the age. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her. must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. Charles made some trite and loud remark. Charles watched her black back recede. So did the rest of Lyme. to her. because he was frequently amused by him; not because there were not better ??machines?? to be found. he had (unlike most young men of his time) actually begun to learn something. no less. of course. an actress. There came a stronger gust of wind.????But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways??? She shook her head with a surprising vehemence.. in this age of steam and cant. No romance. He said finally he should wait one week. and there was a silence.

between us is quite impossible in my present circumstances.??I should visit. with a compromise solution to her dilemma. in terms of our own time. alone. It must be poor Tragedy. who read to her from the Bible in the evenings. Fursey-Harris to call. than that it was the nearest place to Lyme where people could go and not be spied on. But though one may keep the wolves from one??s door. a very limited circle. who had crept up from downstairs at his urgent ringing. but you say. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status. Most deserving of your charity. The bird was stuffed.????That does not excuse her in my eyes.??If the worthy Mrs. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. had cried endlessly. I am to walk in the paths of righteousness. ma??m. Very slowly he let the downhanging strands of ivy fall back into position. it was Mrs. or at least unusually dark. It took the recipient off balance. she had never dismissed.

??In twenty-four hours. to a mistress who never knew the difference between servant and slave. on one of her rare free afternoons??one a month was the reluctant allowance??with a young man. and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street. Again you notice how peaceful. Mrs. a rider clopped peacefully down towards the sea. She be the French Loot??n??nt??s Hoer. Poulteney??s drawing room. It had not.?? Mary had blushed a deep pink; the pressure of the door on Sam??s foot had mysteriously lightened. who lived some miles behind Lyme. Like many of his contemporaries he sensed that the earlier self-responsibility of the century was turning into self-importance: that what drove the new Britain was increasing-ly a desire to seem respectable. Let us turn. He felt the warm spring air caress its way through his half-opened nightshirt onto his bare throat. At Cam-bridge. such a wet blanket in our own. and had to sit a minute to recover. six days at Marlborough House is enough to drive any normal being into Bedlam. Its outer edge gave onto a sheer drop of some thirty or forty feet into an ugly tangle of brambles. not ahead of him. obscure ones like Charles.????And you were no longer cruel. He had been very foolish. Most natural. the face for 1867.????Then permit her to have her wish.