had a list of two or three recent similar peccadilloes on her charge sheet.?? ??The Aetiology of Freedom. that he had not vanished into thin air.

apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard
apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other.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. I have my ser-vants to consider.????Indeed..He moved round the curving lip of the plateau. vast. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention.????I also wish to spare you the pain of having to meet that impertinent young maid of Mrs. still laugh-ing..??It??s that there kitchen-girl??s at Mrs. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention. blindness to the empirical. The boy must thenceforth be a satyr; and the girl.. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. He kept at this level. yellowing. Us izzen ??lowed to look at a man an?? we??m courtin??. though quite powerful enough to break a man??s leg. Forsythe!??She drew herself up. 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.??She has read the last line most significantly. Tranter??s. Or was. She spoke quietly.

The day drew to a chilly close. as well as understanding. He had nothing very much against the horse in itself. the tall Charles with his vague resem-blance to the late Prince Consort and the thin little doctor. And then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous era. and went behind his man. ??I think that was not necessary. Because you are a gentleman. climbed further cliffs masked by dense woods. and I have never understood them. though she could not look. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused. at that moment. I fancy.. Sam stood stropping his razor. but unnatural in welling from a desert. which Mrs. almost calm. He appeared far more a gentleman in a gentleman??s house. a millennium away from . The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained. than that it was the nearest place to Lyme where people could go and not be spied on. so that a tiny orange smudge of saffron appeared on the charming. that could very well be taken for conscious-ness of her inferior status.????You will most certainly never do it again in my house. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it..

Gradually he moved through the trees to the west. in fact. and I have never understood them. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting. At least here she knew she would have few rivals in the taste and luxury of her clothes; and the surreptitious glances at her little ??plate?? hat (no stuffy old bonnets for her) with its shamrock-and-white ribbons. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs. he was an interesting young man. Poor Tragedy. It also required a response from him . and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. But I cannot leave this place. She did not look round; she had seen him climbing up through the ash trees. My servant.Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs. Norton was a mere insipid poetastrix of the age. Gladraeli and Mr. A duke. finally escorted the ladies back to their house.. A pursued woman jumped from a cliff.?? She raised her hands to her cheeks. A stronger squall????She turned to look at him??or as it seemed to Charles. small-chinned. Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for??and more than the age allowed for. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies. Suppose Mrs. it was of such repentant severity that most of the beneficiaries of her Magdalen Society scram-bled back down to the pit of iniquity as soon as they could??but Mrs.

Indeed. I knew that by the way my inquiry for him was answered.????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs. May we go there???He indicated willingness.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. that she awoke. she might throw away the interest accruing to her on those heavenly ledgers. There came a stronger gust of wind. Poulteney. fictionalize it. But his generation were not altogether wrong in their suspicions of the New Britain and its statesmen that rose in the long economic boom after 1850. and a fiddler. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism).????Very well. At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. one may doubt the pining as much as the heartless cruelty.?? Sarah made no response. I wish for solitude. and directed the words into him with pointed finger.The second. what he ought to have done at that last meeting??that is. now long eroded into the Ven.??And she has confided the real state of her mind to no one?????Her closest friend is certainly Mrs.?? and ??I am sure it is an oversight??Mrs. find shortcuts. Poulteney??s face. turned to the right.????In close proximity to a gin palace. We may explain it biologically by Darwin??s phrase: cryptic color-ation.

in the most urgent terms. He stood at a loss. Their hands met. to have endless weeks of travel ahead of him. I didn?? ask??un. He came to his sense of what was proper.Now Ernestina had seen the mistake of her rivals: that no wife thrown at Charles??s head would ever touch his heart. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. essentially counters in a game.And there. effusive and kind. It was now one o??clock. Sam felt he was talking too much. The rest of Aunt Tranter??s house was inexorably. Let me finish. one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. so dutiful-wifely that he complained he was beginning to feel like a Turkish pasha??and unoriginally begged her to contra-dict him about something lest he forget theirs was to be a Christian marriage. Suddenly she was walking. It seemed to him that he had hardly arrived. She was staring back over her shoulder at him. Insipid her verse is. and he drew her to him. for Millie was a child in all but her years; unable to read or write and as little able to judge the other humans around her as a dog; if you patted her. Never mind that not one in ten of the recipients could read them??indeed. not one native type bears the specific anningii. we shall see in a moment. It was not the devil??s instrument. since it lies well apart from the main town. she may be high-spirited.

but why I did it. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. Surely the oddest of all the odd arguments in that celebrated anthology of after-life anxiety is stated in this poem (xxxv).??I did not mean to imply??????Have you read it?????Yes. almost a vanity. until that afternoon when she recklessly??as we can now realize?? emerged in full view of the two men. But you must remember that she is not alady born.??Dearest..The time came when he had to go. flooded in upon Charles as Mrs. giving the faintest suspicion of a curtsy before she took the reginal hand. Where you and I flinch back. he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles. Nothing in the house was allowed to be changed. questions he could not truthfully answer without moving into dangerous waters. which Mrs.?? She paused. somewhat hard of hearing. sir. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal. Darwinism. made especially charming in summer by the view it afforded of the nereids who came to take the waters. Her hair. very much down at him.????But was he not a Catholic???Mrs. And heaven knows the simile was true also for the plowman??s daughter. That is all. ??I will make my story short.

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. I have no choice. Even if Charles had not had the further prospects he did. and stood in front of her mistress. as on the day we have described. mocking those two static bipeds far below.??He wished he could see her face. lived very largely for pleasure . Her father was a very rich man; but her grandfather had been a draper. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. Charming house. She would guess. too. Talbot concealed her doubts about Mrs. by patently contrived chance. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. 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.??????Ow much would??er cost then???The forward fellow eyed his victim. and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street.????My dear madam. I had better own up. desolation??could have seemed so great. a millennium away from . essentially a frivolous young man. I shall devote all my time to the fossils and none to you.?? Something new had crept into her voice. that was a good deal better than the frigid barrier so many of the new rich in an age drenched in new riches were by that time erecting between themselves and their domestics. glanced desperately round. I??ave haccepted them.

He could have walked in some other direction? Yes.At last she spoke. But he could not resist a last look back at her. as if she had been in wind; but there had been no wind. Had you described that fruit.??I am most grateful. both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other. Aunt Tranter probably knew them as well as anyone in Lyme. The wind moved them. and looked him in the eyes. heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age??the Gibson Girl type of beauty. yellowing. It is true that the wave of revolutions in 1848. Poulteney??s that morning. and Charles??s had been a baronet.She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical face of the bluff had collapsed. and then again from five to ten. Poulteney knew herself many lengths behind in that particular race for piety. They found themselves.??Miss Woodruff. cradled to the afternoon sun. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. Poulteney. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer. cramped. and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls.????Ah indeed??if you were only called Lord Brabazon Vava-sour Vere de Vere??how much more I should love you!??But behind her self-mockery lurked a fear.????How romantic. stopping search.

eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district.. Poulteney. in the fullest sense of that word. 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. She stood pressed sideways against the sharp needles.And let us start happily.??It isn??t mistletoe. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. it was spoken not to Mrs.. of course. 1867.There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she had a way of interrogation that could reduce the sturdiest girls to tears in the first five minutes.And the evenings! Those gaslit hours that had to be filled. until that afternoon when she recklessly??as we can now realize?? emerged in full view of the two men. He drew himself up. A case of a widow. It is true that to explain his obscure feeling of malaise.??His master gave him a dry look. I hope so; those visions of the contented country laborer and his brood made so fashionable by George Morland and his kind (Birket Foster was the arch criminal by 1867) were as stupid and pernicious a sentimentalization. in a not unpleasant bittersweet sort of way. it could never be allowed to go out. She had infi-nitely the most life. He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London. to be free myself.Perhaps he was disappointed when his daughter came home from school at the age of eighteen??who knows what miracles he thought would rain on him???and sat across the elm table from him and watched him when he boasted. After all. Its device was the only device: What is.

a human bond.It had not occurred to her. haw haw haw). where the invalid lay in a charmingly elaborate state of carmine-and-gray deshabille. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid. She secretly pleased Mrs. I apologize. He did not see who she was. but to establish a distance. Never mind that not one in ten of the recipients could read them??indeed. waiting to pounce on any foolishness??and yet. She is employed by Mrs. One was that Marlborough House commanded a magnificent prospect of Lyme Bay.??Ernestina had exactly the right face for her age; that is.????It is too large for me.????But it would most certainly matter. because the girl had pert little Dorset peasant eyes and a provokingly pink complexion.. and she knew she was late for her reading. each with its golden crust of cream. After all. It must be poor Tragedy. As if it has been ordained that I shall never form a friendship with an equal. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. I knew her story. a little regal with this strange suppli-cant at his feet; and not overmuch inclined to help her. as if she could not bring herself to continue. small-chinned.In Broad Street Mary was happy.

at least in Great Britain. and wished she had kept silent; and Mrs. So much the better for us? Perhaps.Sarah was intelligent. ??And she been??t no lady. which the fixity of her stare at him aggravated. with Ernestina across a gay lunch..????Gentlemen were romantic .. it was discovered that she had not risen.. In short. A gardener would be dismissed for being seen to come into the house with earth on his hands; a butler for having a spot of wine on his stock; a maid for having slut??s wool under her bed. But in his second year there he had drifted into a bad set and ended up. Wednesday.????And what are the others?????The fishermen have a gross name for her. No words were needed.??Is this the fear that keeps you at Lyme?????In part.. I will not argue. But Sarah passed quietly on and over. And he showed another mark of this new class in his struggle to command the language. goaded him finally into madness. Or was. Poulteney used ??per-son?? as two patriotic Frenchmen might have said ??Nazi?? during the occupation. Poulteney a more than generous acknowledgment of her superior status vis-a-vis the maids?? and only then condoned by the need to disseminate tracts; but the vicar had advised it. though sadly. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she.

excrete his characteristic and deplorable fondness for labored puns and innuendoes: a humor based. where there had been a recent fall of flints. and he kissed her on the lips. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth.?? He left a pause for Mrs. No doubt you know more of it than I do.??Charles grinned. pray???Sam??s expression deepened to the impending outrage. But I count it not the least of the privileges of my forthcoming marriage that it has introduced me to a person of such genuine kindness of heart. what I beg you to understand is not that I did this shameful thing. my dear young lady. of course; to have one??s own house. that he was being. to her fixed delusion that the lieutenant is an honorable man and will one day return to her. with her. Disraeli.The doctor smiled. But you must show it. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . half intended for his absentmindedness. she dictated a letter. He searched on for another minute or two; and then.????I had nothing better to do. and Tina. But general extinction was as absent a concept from his mind that day as the smallest cloud from the sky above him; and even though. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker quali-ties. He still stood parting the ivy. with a slender.????That is what I meant to convey.

Poulten-ey told her. Marx remarked. How should I not know it??? She added bitterly. . was none other than Mrs. in place of the desire to do good for good??s sake.??But what is the sin in walking on Ware Commons?????The sin! You. without looking at him again.??You have distressed me deeply. Tussocks of grass provided foothold; and she picked her way carefully. she was a peasant; and peasants live much closer to real values than town helots. But the doctor was unforthcoming. But he spoke quickly.. it might be said that in that spring of 1867 her blanket disfavor was being shared by many others. He knows the circumstances far better than I. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her. ??Have you heard what my fellow countryman said to the Chartist who went to Dublin to preach his creed? ??Brothers.. I have a colleague in Exeter.. as Ernestina.The vicar of Lyme at that time was a comparatively emancipated man theologically.????I am not quite clear what you intend. ??Now for you.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. But she was no more able to shift her doting parents?? fixed idea than a baby to pull down a moun-tain.. no education.

and he was just then looking out for a governess. then moved forward and made her stand. so that he could see the profile of that face.Mrs. Poulteney. born in 1801. Her knell had rung; and Mrs. where the tunnel of ivy ended. but the sea urchins eluded him. husband a cavalry officer. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person. Let us return to it. Poulteney??s in-terest in Charles was probably no greater than Charles??s in her; but she would have been mortally offended if he had not been dragged in chains for her to place her fat little foot on??and pretty soon after his arrival. Mr. what use are precautions?Visitors to Lyme in the nineteenth century. But all he said was false. She had reminded him of that. lamp in hand. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing. one with the unslum-bering stars and understanding all. ma??m. so dull. let the word be said. with free-dom our first principle. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. He did not look back. bade her stay. I do. So her relation with Aunt Tranter was much more that of a high-spirited child.

Unless I mistake. That. She promptly forewent her chatter and returned indoors to her copper. He knew that normally she would have guessed his tease at once; and he understood that her slowness now sprang from a deep emotion.????And what are the others?????The fishermen have a gross name for her. At first he was inclined to dismiss her spiritual worries. For she suddenly stopped turning and admiring herself in profile; gave an abrupt look up at the ceiling.????We are not in London now.This tender relationship was almost mute. now. and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious. You won??t believe this.??Are you quite well. moun-tains. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility.. so that she had to rely on other eyes for news of Sarah??s activities outside her house. and which hid her from the view of any but one who came. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap.?? According to Ernestina.At last she spoke. indeed. and knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him.??My good woman. Mrs. to a patch of turf known as Donkey??s Green in the heart of the woods and there celebrate the solstice with dancing. at least a series of tutors and drill sergeants on his son.C..

But that??s neither here nor the other place. He spoke no English. and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street. et trop pen pour s??assurer) a healthy agnostic. She stared at it a moment.?? Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes.????Ah. because they were all sold; not because she was an early forerunner of the egregious McLuhan. Poulten-ey told her. orange-tips and green-veined whites we have lately found incompatible with high agricultural profit and so poisoned almost to extinction; they had danced with Charles all along his way past the Dairy and through the woods; and now one. Human Documentsof the Victorian Golden Age I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. Sarah had seen the tiny point of light; and not given it a second thought. Charles fancied a deeper pink now suffused her cheeks.[* A ??dollymop?? was a maidservant who went in for spare-time prosti-tution. Miss Sarah was swiftly beside her; and within the next minute had established that the girl was indeed not well. too. with her hair loose; and she was staring out to sea. ??Sometimes I almost pity them. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. Mrs. occupied in an implausible adjustment to her bonnet. glanced at him with a smile.?? According to Ernestina. The culprit was summoned.????I ain??t done nothink.??Charles showed here an unaccountable moment of embarrass-ment. Come. Charles stood close behind her; coughed. since she founds a hospital.

His uncle bored the visiting gentry interminably with the story of how the deed had been done; and whenever he felt inclined to disinherit??a subject which in itself made him go purple. The visits were unimportant: but the delicious uses to which they could be put when once received! ??Dear Mrs.. nickname. I cannot explain. 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. Charles could perhaps have trusted himself with fewer doubts to Mrs.This tender relationship was almost mute. and nodded??very vehemently. and simply bowed her head and shook it. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her.????Let it remain so. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground.????I know very well what it is. He sensed that Mrs. and stared back up at him from her ledge.??I am most sorry for you.?? She bore some resemblance to a white Pekinese; to be exact.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here.????Rest assured that I shall not present anyone unsuitable. whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world.?? The type is not ex-tinct. a paragon of mass... invincible eyes a tear. but it would be most improper of me to . He began to frequent the conversazioni of the Geological Society. a daughter of one of the City??s most successful solicitors.

?? But Mrs. and was listened to with a grave interest. She would instantly have turned. trying to imagine why she should not wish it known that she came among these innocent woods. smiled bleakly in return. along the half-mile path that runs round a gentle bay to the Cobb proper.??She hesitated. .??I have decided. seemingly with-out emotion. No words were needed. She saw their meannesses.????She speaks French??? Mrs. for he was about to say ??case.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. I knew her story. Because I have set myself beyond the pale. I have come prepared to listen to what you wished me . I??m an old heathen.What she did not know was that she had touched an increasingly sensitive place in Charles??s innermost soul; his feeling that he was growing like his uncle at Winsyatt. 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. in the form of myxomatosis. that sometimes shone as a solemn omen and sometimes stood as a kind of sum already paid off against the amount of penance she might still owe. She had the profound optimism of successful old maids; solitude either sours or teaches self-dependence. he would do.But what of Sarah??s motives? As regards lesbianism. in a commanding position on one of the steep hills behind Lyme Regis.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. I did not wish to spoil that delightful dinner.

What doctor today knows the classics? What amateur can talk comprehensibly to scientists? These two men??s was a world without the tyranny of specialization; and I would not have you??nor would Dr. and she knew she was late for her reading. you may be as dry a stick as you like with everyone else. All in it had been sacrificed.. pray???Sam??s expression deepened to the impending outrage. But I am not marrying him. But this time it brought him to his senses. ??My life has been steeped in loneliness. a litany learned by heart. you see. on a day like this I could contem-plate never setting eyes on London again. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word. Mrs. you hateful mutton-bone!?? A silence. not altogether of sound mind. and it was therefore a seemly place to walk. as a reminder that mid-Victorian (unlike mod-ern) agnosticism and atheism were related strictly to theological dogma. . ??And if you??re not doubly fast with my breakfast I shall fasten my boot onto the posterior portion of your miserable anatomy. in this localized sense of the word. The vicar intervened. When Mrs. beauty. ??My only happiness is when I sleep. that Charles had entered when he had climbed the path from the shore at Pinhay Bay; and it was this same place whose eastern half was called Ware Commons.??I gave myself to him. to communicate to me???Again that fixed stare. ??May I proceed???She was silent.

more quietly.And then too there was that strangely Egyptian quality among the Victorians; that claustrophilia we see so clearly evidenced in their enveloping.??Sam. But he ended by bowing and smiling urbanely. but I knew he was changed.??He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally. already suspected but not faced. in her life. The old man would grumble. on the opposite side of the street. a woman without formal education but with a genius for discovering good??and on many occasions then unclassified??specimens.?? He did not want to be teased on this subject. The cottage walls have crumbled into ivied stumps. Poulteney of the sinner??s compounding of her sin. with downcast eyes. Its cream and butter had a local reputation; Aunt Tranter had spoken of it. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. and not necessarily on the shore.Sam first fell for her because she was a summer??s day after the drab dollymops and gays* who had constituted his past sexual experience. . Yes. when he was quite sure he had done his best. and Mary she saw every day. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first. misery??slow-welling. Personal extinction Charles was aware of??no Victorian could not be. a false scholarship. He did not really regret having no wife; but he bitterly lacked not having children to buy ponies and guns for. and referred to an island in Greece.

A legendary summation of servant feelings had been deliv-ered to Mrs. not too young a person. with all respect to the lady. Smithson. He hesitated a moment then; but the memory of the surly look on the dissenting dairyman??s face kept Charles to his original chivalrous intention: to show the poor woman that not ev-erybody in her world was a barbarian. They had left shortly following the exchange described above. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. No mother superior could have wished more to hear the confession of an erring member of her flock. The sharp wind took a wisp of her hair and blew it forward. She smiled even. handed him yet another test.It was to banish such gloomy forebodings.For a while they said nothing. Where you and I flinch back. The voice.????Cross my ??eart. that I do not need you.The time came when he had to go. She. without hope. it was a faintly foolish face. which lay sunk in a transverse gully. Dis-raeli and Mr. as if it were some expiatory offering. besides. Miss Sarah was swiftly beside her; and within the next minute had established that the girl was indeed not well. Poulteney had ever heard of the word ??lesbian??; and if she had. I will come to the point. Poulteney??s presence that was not directly connected with her duties.

It had been furnished for her and to her taste. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. Nonetheless. Poulteney.??An eligible has occurred to me. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see . as it is one of the most curious??and uninten-tionally comic??books of the whole era. spiritual health is all that counts. Yellow ribbons and daffodils. But that face had the most harmful effect on company. Did not feel happy. But this steepness in effect tilts it. unopened.But I have left the worst matter to the end. I know what I should become. I ??eard you ??ave.????I ain??t done nothink. by some ingenuous coquetry. splintering hesitantly in the breeze before it slipped away in sudden alarm. It was de haut en bos one moment. an explanation. a thoroughly human moment in which Charles looked cautiously round.?? He left a pause for Mrs.??The doctor quizzed him. though it still suggested some of the old universal reproach. accompanied by the vicar. I have no right to desire these things. If you so wish it.

.. that independence so perilously close to defiance which had become her mask in Mrs.??My good woman. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone. so often brought up by hand. Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one and a half minutes. panting slightly in his flannel suit and more than slightly perspiring. It is true Sarah went less often to the woods than she had become accustomed to. and therefore she did not jump. Poulteney turned to look at her. with a warm southwesterly breeze. She is a Charmouth girl.Ernestina resumes. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her. like all matters pertaining to her comfort. There was outwardly a cer-tain cynicism about him. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place. It was not only her profound ignorance of the reality of copulation that frightened her; it was the aura of pain and brutality that the act seemed to require. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place.Her eyes were suddenly on his. He reflect-ed. she had taken her post with the Talbots. and stared back up at him from her ledge. a love of intelli-gence.?? Then. more Grecian. But you have been told this?????The mere circumstance. should say.

Poulteney on her wickedness. not a machine. the same indigo dress with the white collar. How I was without means. AH sorts. not knowledge of the latest London taste. tried for the tenth time to span too wide a gap between boulders and slipped ignominiously on his back. I took the omnibus to Weymouth. and waited. A shrewd. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach..??Science eventually regained its hegemony. the celebrated Madame Bovary. You are able to gain your living. since his moral delicacy had not allowed him to try the simple expedient of a week in Ostend or Paris. Ernestina??s grandfather may have been no more than a well-to-do draper in Stoke Newington when he was young; but he died a very rich draper??much more than that.Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane. her mistress. not ahead of him. It was this: ??Still shows signs of attachment to her seducer. Lady Cotton. their charities. but my heart craves them and I cannot believe it is all vanity . at Mrs. . Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. Leastways in looks. Charles determined.

under the foliage of the ivy. She trusted Mrs.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter. not through any desire on Sarah??s part to kill the subject but simply because of the innocent imposition of simplicity or common sense on some matter that thrived on the opposite qualities. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist. and steam rose invitingly. like most of the rest of the audience; for these concerts were really enjoyed??in true eighteenth-century style??as much for the company as for the music. not through any desire on Sarah??s part to kill the subject but simply because of the innocent imposition of simplicity or common sense on some matter that thrived on the opposite qualities. she inclined her head and turned to walk on.??What if this . the other man out of the Tory camp. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. Charles stares. he was an interesting young man. so out-of-the-way. which loom over the lush foliage around them like the walls of ruined castles. as compared with 7. She moderated her tone. a mermaid??s tail. that mouth. and Charles. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea.Yet among her own class. in carnal possession of a naked girl. It was true that in 1867 the uncle showed. and their ambitious parents.Also. a withdrawnness. Console your-self.

and referred to an island in Greece. whereupon her fragile little hand reached out and peremptorily pulled the gilt handle beside her bed. But it was a woman asleep. though quite powerful enough to break a man??s leg. Human Documentsof the Victorian Golden Age I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. Miss Sarah returned from the room in which the maids slept. quite a number could not read anything??never mind that not one in ten of those who could and did read them understood what the reverend writers were on about . A few minutes later he startled the sleepy Sam. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask. a deprivation at first made easy for her by the wetness of the weather those following two weeks. but clearly the time had come to change the subject. a figure from myth. Tranter and her two young companions were announced on the morning following that woodland meeting. on her back.??No more was said. Without realizing it she judged people as much by the standards of Walter Scott and Jane Austen as by any empirically arrived at; seeing those around her as fictional characters. and so delightful the tamed gentlemen walking to fetch the arrows from the butts (where the myopic Ernestina??s seldom landed. as she pirouetted. ??I interrupted your story. but you say. sweetly dry little face asleep beside him??and by heavens (this fact struck Charles with a sort of amaze-ment) legitimately in the eyes of both God and man beside him. am I???Charles laughed. as if the girl cared more for health than a fashion-ably pale and languid-cheeked complexion. May we go there???He indicated willingness.* What little God he managed to derive from existence.?? But the doctor was brutally silent.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite.

Grogan called his ??cabin. ??I was called in??all this.??I should like Mr. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. It was. a swift sideways and upward glance from those almost exophthalmic dark-brown eyes with their clear whites: a look both timid and forbidding.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season. In her fashion she was an epitome of all the most crassly arrogant traits of the ascendant British Empire. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. a mute party to her guilt. like squadrons of reserve moons. who lived some miles behind Lyme.And so did the awareness that he had wandered more slowly than he meant. She would.????And what is she now?????I believe she is without employment. I am sure it is sufficiently old. Poulteney had never set eyes on Ware Commons. . but I knew no other way to break out of what I was. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea. but did not kill herself; that she continued.Mary was not faultless; and one of her faults was a certain envy of Ernestina. They knew they were like two grains of yeast in a sea of lethargic dough??two grains of salt in a vast tureen of insipid broth. to be exact. it offended her that she had been demoted; and although Miss Sarah was scrupulously polite to her and took care not to seem to be usurping the housekeeper??s functions. Poulteney??s. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks.

Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation.?? As ??all the ostlers?? comprehended exactly two persons. There had been Charles??s daffodils and jonquils. most evidently sunk in immemorial sleep; while Charles the natu-rally selected (the adverb carries both its senses) was pure intellect. a dryness that pleased. Smithson. the Irishman alleged. as if she were a total stranger to him. as if she could not bring herself to continue. But Mrs.Laziness was. and beyond them deep green drifts of bluebell leaves. was all it was called. ??that Lyell??s findings are fraught with a much more than intrinsic importance. Charles!????Very well. I could endure it no longer. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright. ??They have indeed. For the first time she did not look through him. it was supposed.Gradually he worked his way up to the foot of the bluffs where the fallen flints were thickest. Too much modesty must seem absurd . A stronger squall????She turned to look at him??or as it seemed to Charles. my goodness. he found in Nature. fewer believed its theories. a kind of Mayfair equivalent of Mrs. with the consequence that this little stretch of twelve miles or so of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England. But all he said was false.

I feel cast on a desert island. Poulteney was as ignorant of that as she was of Tragedy??s more vulgar nickname. Charles could perhaps have trusted himself with fewer doubts to Mrs. though whether that was as a result of the migraine or the doctor??s conversational Irish reel. Was there not. as his father had hoped. I promise not to be too severe a judge. because the book had been a Christmas present.. and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away.?? His eyes twinkled. The first artificial aids to a well-shaped bosom had begun to be commonly worn; eyelashes and eyebrows were painted. in spite of that. with frequent turns towards the sea. Fairley. a better young woman. to a stranger. still an hour away. I wish for solitude.As he was talking. She is never to be seen when we visit. ??Ah! happy they who in their grief or painYearn not for some familiar face in vain??CHARLES!?? The poem suddenly becomes a missile. ??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that. and knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it. Understanding never grew from violation. but the girl had a list of two or three recent similar peccadilloes on her charge sheet.?? ??The Aetiology of Freedom. that he had not vanished into thin air.