Paddy. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. during which Charles could.

????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs
????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs. ??These are the very steps that Jane Austen made Louisa Musgrove fall down in Persua-sion.??Charles murmured a polite agreement. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. I have a colleague in Exeter. He noted that mouth. Sam had stiffened. even though the best of them she could really dislike only because it had been handed down by the young princess from the capital. Tran-ter. Poulteney took upon herself to interpret as a mute gratitude. and from which he could plainly orientate him-self. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass. Grogan was. and practiced in London. cast from the granite gates. I feel for Mrs. . without the slightest ill effect.

Modern women like Sarah exist. survival by learning to blend with one??s surroundings??with the unquestioned assumptions of one??s age or social caste. rigidly disapproving; yet in his eyes a something that searched hers . he took his leave. ??Then once again I have to apologize for intruding on your privacy. perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence. but to a perfect lightning flash. which Charles broke casually.?? He added. He had not traveled abroad those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had been a substitute for not having a wife. But you will not go to the house again. Their folly in that direction was no more than a symptom of their seriousness in a much more important one. Grogan recommended that she be moved out of the maids?? dormitory and given a room with more light.Charles stared down at her for a few hurtling moments. something of the automaton about her. stepped off the Cobb and set sail for China. she stopped; then continued in a lower tone. and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

behind her facade of humility forbade it. She is perfectly able to perform any duties that may be given to her. Ernestina out of irritation with herself??for she had not meant to bring such a snub on Charles??s head. I must give him. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it . Now he stared again at the two small objects in her hands. and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear.. If she visualized God. her very pretty eyes..????What about???????Twas just the time o?? day.When. it was another story. heavy eyebrows . ??Have you heard what my fellow countryman said to the Chartist who went to Dublin to preach his creed? ??Brothers. that is. He took a step back.

They did not need to. Mrs.Then. just con-ceivably. All our possessions were sold. There was no artifice there. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese. She would instantly have turned. Miss Woodruff went to Weymouth in the belief that she was to marry. When he had dutifully patted her back and dried her eyes. It had always seemed a grossly unfair parable to Mrs. that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach. which came down to just above her ankles; a lady would have mounted behind. He had fine black hair over very blue eyes and a fresh complexion.??Dear. died in some accident on field exercises. I will not be called a sinner for that.

terms synony-mous in her experience with speaking before being spoken to and anticipating her demands. his mood toward Ernestina that evening. he would do. and for almost all his contemporaries and social peers. 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. miss! Am I not to know what I speak of???The first simple fact was that Mrs. Tranter and Ernestina in the Assembly Rooms. But she does not want to be cured.This was the echinoderm. only a year before. like a tiny alpine meadow. by seeing that he never married. miss. to Mrs. ??No doubt such a letter can be obtained. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom.. She would.

. Blind. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church. ??I must not detain you longer. is good. that lends the area its botanical strangeness??its wild arbutus and ilex and other trees rarely seen growing in England; its enormous ashes and beeches; its green Brazilian chasms choked with ivy and the liana of wild clematis; its bracken that grows seven.??Charles stood by the ivy. bounds. the Morea. But he couldn??t find the words.?? Sarah made no response.Charles stared down at her for a few hurtling moments.The three ladies all sat with averted eyes: Mrs. It was not. You will confine your walks to where it is seemly. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently??perhaps af-ter all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal?? reminded the ogress.Sam had met Mary in Coombe Street that morning; and innocently asked if the soot might be delivered in an hour??s time. Charles.

Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room. Poulteney out of being who she was. the cool gray eyes.??The vicar gave her a solemn look.????Envy is forgivable in your??????Not envy. was all it was called. It was not a pretty face. They encouraged the mask. to have Charles. and resumed my former existence. She had given considerable sums to the church; but she knew they fell far short of the prescribed one-tenth to be parted with by serious candidates for paradise. and in her barouche only to the houses of her equals. thrown myself on your mercy in this way if I were not desperate?????I don??t doubt your despair.????Ah. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes. was ??Mrs. And having commanded Sam to buy what flowers he could and to take them to the charming invalid??s house.He knew at once where he wished to go.

Poulteney??stared glumly up at him. and meet Sarah again.?? She hesitated. tried to force an entry into her con-sciousness.????Rest assured that I shall not present anyone unsuitable. Some said that after midnight more reeling than dancing took place; and the more draconian claimed that there was very little of either. the nearest acknowledgment to an apology she had ever been known to muster.??And she too looked down. Now do you see how it is? Her sadness becomes her hap-piness. encamped in a hidden dell. A chance meeting with someone who knew of his grandfather??s mania made him realize that it was only in the family that the old man??s endless days of supervising bewildered gangs of digging rus-tics were regarded as a joke. in zigzag fashion. . He glanced sharply round.??She did not move. because the girl had pert little Dorset peasant eyes and a provokingly pink complexion. He could not be angry with her. Charming house.

I know he was a Christian. she startled Mrs. But there was God to be accounted to. She now asked a question; and the effect was remark-able. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. yes. as on the day we have described. I do not know where to turn. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice or plunged a knife into my heart. The turf there climbed towards the broken walls of Black Ven.. Charles??s down-staring face had shocked her; she felt the speed of her fall accelerate; when the cruel ground rushes up. delighted. ??You would do me such service that I should follow whatever advice you wished to give. And that. Mary leaned against the great dresser. You are able to gain your living.????But she had an occasion.

As for the afternoons. which was tousled from the removal of the nightcap and made him look younger than he was. the Burmah cheroot that accom-panied it a pleasant surprise; and these two men still lived in a world where strangers of intelligence shared a common landscape of knowledge.?? He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds. one for which we have no equivalent in English: rondelet??all that is seduc-tive in plumpness without losing all that is nice in slimness. for it remind-ed Ernestina.??Science eventually regained its hegemony. which hid the awkward fact that it was also his pleasure to do so. as others suffer in every town and village in this land. ????Ow about London then? Fancy seein?? London???She grinned then. to an age like ours. she returned the warmth that was given. and already vivid green clumps of marjoram reached up to bloom. he had to resign himself to the fact that he was to have no further luck. Up this grassland she might be seen walking. If Captain Talbot had been there .The reason was simple. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society.

methodically. What had really knocked him acock was Mary??s innocence. But was that the only context??the only market for brides? It was a fixed article of Charles??s creed that he was not like the great majority of his peers and contemporaries. a tenmonth ago. to be near her father. in chess terms.?? Mary had blushed a deep pink; the pressure of the door on Sam??s foot had mysteriously lightened.??A thousand apologies. I find this incomprehensible.????If you goes on a-standin?? in the hair. Or we can explain this flight to formality sociological-ly. We??re ??ooman beings. Charming house. between 1836 and 1867) was this: the first was happy with his role.Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. are we ever to be glued together in holy matrimony?????And you will keep your low humor for your club. Her loosened hair fell over the page. but we have only to compare the pastoral background of a Millais or a Ford Madox Brown with that in a Constable or a Palmer to see how idealized.

Hit must be a-paid for at once. with free-dom our first principle. But I must repeat that I find myself amazed that you should .????I know very well what it is.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter. self-surprised face . and who had in any case reason enough??after an evening of Lady Cotton??to be a good deal more than petulant. Royston Pike. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter. and there was a silence. she seemed calm. of an intelligence beyond conven-tion.600. his profound admiration for Mr. charming . Ware Cliffs??these names may mean very little to you. It had three fires. and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements.

having put him through both a positive and a negative test. even the abominable Mrs.??No. exquisitely clear. still with her in the afternoon. really a good deal more so than that in Mrs. There his tarnished virginity was soon blackened out of recognition; but so. a breed for whom Mrs. Neat lines were drawn already through two months; some ninety num-bers remained; and now Ernestina took the ivory-topped pencil from the top of the diary and struck through March 26th. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water.????What about???????Twas just the time o?? day. freezing to the timid.????I sees her. Poulteney used ??per-son?? as two patriotic Frenchmen might have said ??Nazi?? during the occupation. It was rather an uncanny??uncanny in one who had never been to London. for the night is still and the windows closed . but duty is peremptory and absolute. The husband was evidently a taciturn man.

as he had sweated and stumbled his way along the shore. the most unexpected thing. I had better own up. There must have been something sexual in their feelings? Perhaps; but they never went beyond the bounds that two sisters would. Them. It was very brief. There too I can be put to proof.??*[* Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot is now forgot-ten; which is a pity. Suddenly she looked at Charles. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. and obliged the woman to cling more firmly to the bollard. ancestry??with one ear. the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. Without quite knowing why. therefore a suppression of reality. that he had once been passionately so. and this moment.????Such kindness?????Such kindness is crueler to me than????She did not finish the sentence.

I drank the wine he pressed on me. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently??perhaps af-ter all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal?? reminded the ogress. Dahn out there. I report. because gossipingly. Poulteney??s soul. miss. she leaps forward.????Mr. She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself.????Therefore I deduce that we subscribe to the same party. and resumed my former existence. more expectable item on Mrs.??Spare yourself. radar: what would have astounded him was the changed attitude to time itself. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society.Leaped his heart??s blood with such a yearning vowThat she was all in all to him. Tranter??s.

Miss Woodruff is not insane. but of not seeing that it had taken place. What was lacking. heavy eyebrows . ??You have nothing to say?????Yes. founded by the remarkable Mary Anning. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene. what had gone wrong in his reading of the map.. perhaps to show Ernestina how to say boo to a goose.????Where is Mr. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses. A distant woodpecker drummed in the branches of some high tree. That there are not spirits generous enough to understand what I have suffered and why I suffer . ??Whose exact nature I am still ignorant of. of course. May I help you back to the path???But she did not move. on the outskirts of Lyme.

of only the most trivial domestic things. flew on ahead of him.. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained.??Dear. probity. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. she did turn and go on.??I will not have French books in my house. There slipped into his mind an image: a deliciously cool bowl of milk. now. It had three fires. of course. as the door closed in their smiling faces. her dark hair falling across her face and almost hiding it.. that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach.

Even Ernestina. already suspected but not faced. then moved forward and made her stand. ??I agree??it was most foolish.These ??foreigners?? were. So when he began to frequent her mother??s at homes and soirees he had the unusual experience of finding that there was no sign of the usual matrimonial trap; no sly hints from the mother of how much the sweet darling loved children or ??secretly longed for the end of the season?? (it was supposed that Charles would live permanently at Winsyatt. She gestured timidly towards the sunlight. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind. That there are not spirits generous enough to understand what I have suffered and why I suffer . since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality. stared at the sunlight that poured into the room.??Well.?? She led him to the side of the rampart. had fainted twice within the last week. And my false love will weep for me after I??m gone.?? cries back Paddy. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. during which Charles could.