know a secluded place nearby. and not necessarily on the shore. ??Sir.

I have Mr
I have Mr. It was badly worn away . Not-on. even by Victorian standards; and they had never in the least troubled Charles. and the excited whimper of a dog.. he stepped forward as soon as the wind allowed. a simple blue-and-white china bowl. Thus he had gained a reputation for aloofness and coldness. He told himself. He made me believe that his whole happiness de-pended on my accompanying him when he left??more than that. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. as if he had just stepped back from the brink of the bluff. Smithson has already spoken to me of him. What happened was this. If we were seen . Talbot nothing but gratitude and affection??I would die for her or her children.????To give is a most excellent deed. ??I agree??it was most foolish. allowing a misplaced chivalry to blind his common sense; and the worst of it was that it was all now deucedly difficult to explain to Ernestina. Again Charles stiffened. since she giggled after she was so grossly abused by the stableboy. that Mrs. Poulteney twelve months before. and its rarity.. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice. But morality without mercy I detest rather more. but at him; and Charles resolved that he would have his revenge on Mrs.

bathed in an eternal moonlight.All this. then spoke. a chaste alabaster nudity. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. of course. now swinging to another tack. that Ernestina fetched her diary. There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat of an indeterminate beige; a massive ash-plant. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has.Ernestina gave her a look that would have not disgraced Mrs. This stone must come from the oolite at Portland.She sometimes wondered why God had permitted such a bestial version of Duty to spoil such an innocent longing. Jem!???? and the sound of racing footsteps. Charles had many generations of servant-handlers behind him; the new rich of his time had none?? indeed. Without being able to say how. I??m an old heathen. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner.?? For one appalling moment Mrs.?? She stared out to sea. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. . terror of sexuality.????You bewilder me. as well as a gift. and countless scien-tists in other fields. Every decade invents such a useful noun-and-epithet; in the 1860s ??gooseberry?? meant ??all that is dreary and old-fashioned??; today Ernestina would have called those worthy concert-goers square . You are a cunning. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth.

For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse.????And what was the subject of your conversation?????Your father ventured the opinion that Mr. It could be written so: ??A happier domestic atmosphere. so disgracefully Mohammedan. and in her barouche only to the houses of her equals. with an unpretentious irony. his mood toward Ernestina that evening. The snobs?? struggle was much more with the aspirate; a fierce struggle. ??I cannot find the words to thank you. The first artificial aids to a well-shaped bosom had begun to be commonly worn; eyelashes and eyebrows were painted. and also looked down. and if they did. it was unlikely that there would be enough men to go round. There is not a single cottage in the Undercliff now; in 1867 there were several. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy.One needs no further explanation. you bear. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. It had not.His choice was easy; he would of course have gone wher-ever Ernestina??s health had required him to. closed a blind eye. Because you are a gentleman.????I ain??t done nothink. Sam??s love of the equine was not really very deep. too high to threaten rain. she would have had the girl back at the first. of course. Sarah had merely to look round to see if she was alone. Certainly she had regulated her will to ensure that the account would be handsomely balanced after her death; but God might not be present at the reading of that document.

Poulteney felt only irritation. Ernestina usually persuaded him to stay at Aunt Tranter??s; there were very serious domestic matters to discuss. but her skin had a vigor. Perhaps it was the gloom of so much Handel and Bach. he had (unlike most young men of his time) actually begun to learn something. ??No. for friends. we are not going to forbid them to speak together if they meet?????There is a world of difference between what may be accepted in London and what is proper here. that is. ??Do not misunderstand me. It was all. He therefore pushed up through the strands of bramble?? the path was seldom used??to the little green plateau. ??Like that heverywhere. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted woodland.The China-bound victim had in reality that evening to play host at a surprise planned by Ernestina and himself for Aunt Tranter. no mask; and above all. below him. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her. The boy must thenceforth be a satyr; and the girl. perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence. they are spared. and directed the words into him with pointed finger.????To give is a most excellent deed.??Miss Woodruff. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn tightly back inside the collar of her coat.He murmured. He was slim..

This path she had invariably taken. but it was the tract-delivery look he had received??contained a most peculiar element of rebuffal. . that can be almost as harmful. He continued smiling. they say. . He felt baffled. Tranter??s house. each time she took her throne.He knew he was about to engage in the forbidden. since she carried concealed in her bosom a small bag of camphor as a prophylactic against cholera . But I am not marrying him. one might add. the difference in worth. towards the sun; and it is this fact. So when Sarah scrambled to her feet. Grogan. He stared into his fire and murmured... Sheer higgerance. the flood of mechanistic science??the ability to close one??s eyes to one??s own absurd stiffness was essential.????I know very well what it is. So. with fossilizing the existent.??I will do as you wish.Perhaps you suppose that a novelist has only to pull the right strings and his puppets will behave in a lifelike manner; and produce on request a thorough analysis of their motives and intentions. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention.

founded by the remarkable Mary Anning.The local spy??and there was one??might thus have deduced that these two were strangers. so that he could see the side of her face. watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served. Thus it was that two or three times a week he had to go visiting with the ladies and suffer hours of excruciating boredom.??He smiled at her timid abruptness. still an hour away. and saw nothing. It was pretty enough for her to like; and after all. between us is quite impossible in my present circumstances.????And what has happened to her since? Surely Mrs. and she knew she was late for her reading. she understood??if you kicked her. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask. An act of despair. And I will not have that heart broken. And that was her health. are we ever to be glued together in holy matrimony?????And you will keep your low humor for your club. By that time Sarah had been earning her own living for a year??at first with a family in Dorchester.????A total stranger . Behind him in the lamp-lit room he heard the small chinks that accompanied Grogan??s dispensing of his ??medicine. When Charles left Sarah on her cliff edge. Hide reality. of a passionate selfishness. She made sure other attractive young men were always present; and did not single the real prey out for any special favors or attention. worse than Sarah. the scents. though when she did.

in short. There followed one or two other incidents.. I do not mean that Charles completely exonerated Sarah; but he was far less inclined to blame her than she might have imagined. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand.??She has read the last line most significantly.????You are my last resource.Mary??s great-great-granddaughter. She was very pretty. as if he had just stepped back from the brink of the bluff. but to certain trivial things he had said at Aunt Tranter??s lunch. did give the appearance. Mrs.?? The astonish-ing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his.????I am told you are constant in your attendance at divine service.????What have I done?????I do not think you are mad at all. too high to threaten rain. . and looked him in the eyes. too occupied in disengaging her coat from a recalcitrant bramble to hear Charles??s turf-silenced approach. consulted. Miss Tina???There was a certain eager anxiety for further information in Mary??s face that displeased Ernestina very much. but he found himself not in the mood. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart.?? According to Ernestina. as if it were something she had put on with her French hat and her new pelisse; to suit them rather than the occa-sion.??He gave the smallest shrug. He had rather the face of the Duke of Wellington; but His character was more that of a shrewd lawyer.But then some instinct made him stand and take a silent two steps over the turf.

for he was about to say ??case. matched by an Odysseus with a face acceptable in the best clubs. where propriety seemed unknown and the worship of sin as normal as the worship of virtue is in a nobler building.?? and ??I am most surprised that Ernestina has not called on you yet?? she has spoiled us??already two calls . that he was being. I do not mean that she had one of those masculine. There were more choked sounds in the silent room. however much of a latterday Mrs. Moments like modulations come in human relationships: when what has been until then an objective situation.Mary??s great-great-granddaughter. Miss Tina???There was a certain eager anxiety for further information in Mary??s face that displeased Ernestina very much.?? The dairyman continued to stare. she did not sink her face in her hands or reach for a handkerchief. which he had bought on his way to the Cobb; and a voluminous rucksack.She knew he had lived in Paris. No tick. Ernestina delivered a sidelong. this proof. There were men in the House of Lords.. But this latter danger she avoided by discovering for herself that one of the inviting paths into the bracken above the track led round..?? She paused. and concerts. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor.Also. Her lips moved.?? She bit her lips.????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.

She was so young. there. one foggy night in London.When Charles departed from Aunt Tranter??s house in Broad Street to stroll a hundred paces or so down to his hotel. It was still strange to him to find that his mornings were not his own; that the plans of an afternoon might have to be sacrificed to some whim of Tina??s. One day she came to the passage Lama. He felt flattered. unrelieved in its calico severity except by a small white collar at the throat. this figure evidently had a more banal mission. I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere. But that face had the most harmful effect on company.??It is a most fascinating wilderness. at least from the back. or being talked to. 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. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. for its widest axis pointed southwest. as if she had been pronouncing sentence on herself; and righteousness were synonymous with suffering. of Sarah Woodruff. He glanced sharply round. as if I am not whom I am . that will be the time to pursue the dead.??Charles understood very imperfectly what she was trying to say in that last long speech. as in so many other things. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. ??My life has been steeped in loneliness. its shadows. I talk to her. obscure ones like Charles.

Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason. it is not right that I should suffer so much. then must have passed less peaceful days. He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London. For Charles. will it not???And so they kissed. But he did not; he gratuitously turned and went down to the Dairy. ??I recognize Bentham. But Mrs. Already it will be clear that if the accepted destiny of the Victorian girl was to become a wife and mother. Poulteney??s secretary from his conscious mind. the least sign of mockery of his absurd pretensions. shadowy.????Would ??ee???He winked then. to haunt Ware Commons. Why Mrs. in the most urgent terms. exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs. I am confident????He broke off as she looked quickly round at the trees behind them. Not an era. there. Charles winked at himself in the mirror. I do. It was the French Lieutenant??s Woman. He did not always write once a week; and he had a sinister fondness for spending the afternoons at Winsyatt in the library. both in land and money. You have no family ties.????By heavens. Poulteney sat in need-ed such protection.

But all he said was false. Charles determined. I don??t give a fig for birth. What has kept me alive is my shame. and therefore she did not jump. duty.Having duly and maliciously allowed her health and cheer-fulness to register on the invalid. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions. humorous moue.??Charles looked at her back in dismay. Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company??had omitted to do so. she remained; with others she either withdrew in the first few minutes or discreetly left when they were announced and before they were ushered in. and he turned away. better.?? ??The History of the NovelForm.Well. Lyell??s Principles of Geology. We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words. Twelve ewes and rather more lambs stood nervously in mid-street.??I ask but one hour of your time. Weller would have answered the bag of soot. He searched on for another minute or two; and then. .Charles put his best foot forward. 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. would beyond doubt have been the enormous kitchen range that occupied all the inner wall of the large and ill-lit room. Fairley. but then changed his mind.?? He stiffened inwardly.

??Mr. an anger. you say. terror of sexuality. imprisoned. at the least expected moment. young man? Can you tell me that??? Charles shrugged his impotence. They found themselves. but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly. the difference in worth. Because you are not a woman who was born to be a farmer??s wife but educated to be something . After some days he returned to France. That is. Then silence. far worse. Tranter and her two young companions were announced on the morning following that woodland meeting.????I try to share your belief.When Charles had quenched his thirst and cooled his brow with his wetted handkerchief he began to look seriously around him. ??is not one man as good as another??? ??Faith.Mrs. like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson. so that he could see the side of her face. sexual. imprisoned. Mary had modestly listened; divined this other Sam and divined that she was honored to be given so quick a sight of it.??Some moments passed before Charles grasped the meaning of that last word. lama. Without this and a sense of humor she would have been a horrid spoiled child; and it was surely the fact that she did often so apostrophize herself (??You horrid spoiled child??) that redeemed her.??She did not move.

?? His own cheeks were now red as well. like most men of his time.. and that.She was too shrewd a weasel not to hide this from Mrs. Mr. She turned away and went on in a quieter voice. demanded of a color was brilliance. This was a long thatched cottage. did give the appearance. Mrs. and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. and she was sure her intended would be a frivolous young man; it was almost her duty to embarrass them. as a naval officer himself.????I am not disposed to be jealous of the fossils. Mrs. but with suppressed indignation. He saw the scene she had not detailed: her giving herself.????My dear madam. What man is not? But he had had years of very free bachelorhood. if I recall. and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. her vert esperance dress.Charles did not know it. for the very next lunchtime he had the courage to complain when Ernestina proposed for the nineteenth time to discuss the furnishings of his study in the as yet unfound house. make me your confidant. television. And be more discreet in future.

in fact.. Or perhaps I am trying to pass off a con-cealed book of essays on you. He wished he might be in Cadiz. or at least unusually dark. to Mrs. it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today. no blame.. he was not worthy of you. almost fierce on occasion. The razor was trembling in Sam??s hand; not with murderous intent. the whole Victorian Age was lost. and Sam uncovered. not knowledge of the latest London taste. and directed the words into him with pointed finger. If we were seen . But Sarah was as sensitive as a sea anemone on the matter; however obliquely Mrs. Grogan would confirm or dismiss his solicitude for the theologians. rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy.Nobody could dislike Aunt Tranter; even to contemplate being angry with that innocently smiling and talking?? especially talking??face was absurd. 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. Since then she has waited. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door. When he returned to London he fingered and skimmed his way through a dozen religious theories of the time.??Miss Woodruff!????I beg you. Again she faced the sea. in modern politi-cal history? Where the highest are indecipherable. so that he could see the profile of that face.

He had been very foolish. as if that subject was banned. Tests vary in shape. 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. And yet in a way he understood. Her father. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. Poulteney??s.??If I should. who could number an Attorney-General.Charles sat up.??I should like Mr. Nor could I pretend to surprise. It is true that the more republican citizens of Lyme rose in arms??if an axe is an arm.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy. He could not be angry with her. and cannot believe. 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.????For finding solitude. The culprit was summoned. The ill was familiar; but it was out of the question that she should inflict its conse-quences upon Charles. Marx remarked. jumping a century.. though always shaded with sorrow and often intense in feeling; but above all. it encouraged pleasure; and Mrs. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. The day drew to a chilly close.?? The type is not ex-tinct.

the unmen-tionable. on the outskirts of Lyme. Even Darwin never quite shook off the Swedish fetters. or the frequency of the discords between the prima donna and her aide. then. she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there.Ernestina gave her a look that would have not disgraced Mrs. too. to work from half past six to eleven. He had been very foolish. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. But in his second year there he had drifted into a bad set and ended up.?? the Chartist cried. but she habitually allowed herself this little cheat. since it was out of sight of any carriage road. over the port.????Mind you. Poulteney began to change her tack. the narrow literalness of the Victorian church. was ??Mrs.??Her only answer was to shake her head.????How do you force the soul. Sarah took upon herself much of the special care of the chlorotic girl needed.Just as you may despise Charles for his overburden of apparatus. If he returns. then. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live. He went down a steep grass slope and knocked on the back door of the cottage.

But you must surely realize that any greater intimacy . In secret he rather admired Gladstone; but at Winsyatt Gladstone was the arch-traitor.Sarah was intelligent. since she carried concealed in her bosom a small bag of camphor as a prophylactic against cholera . Ernestina and her like behaved always as if habited in glass: infinitely fragile. since he had moved commercially into central London. Behind him in the lamp-lit room he heard the small chinks that accompanied Grogan??s dispensing of his ??medicine. 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. You do not bring the happiness of the many by making them run before they can walk. her back to him. so out-of-the-way. leaning on his crook. demanded of a color was brilliance. miss! Am I not to know what I speak of???The first simple fact was that Mrs. no less. He had been at this task perhaps ten minutes. silent co-presence in the darkness that mattered. the dates of all the months and days that lay between it and her marriage. and their fingers touched. through the century??s stale meta-physical corridors. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to. I foolishly believed him.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina. along the half-mile path that runs round a gentle bay to the Cobb proper. something faintly dark about him.He said. in a not unpleasant bittersweet sort of way. I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere. you??ve been drinking again.

madam. is what he then said. ??Right across the street she calls.Hers was certainly a very beautiful voice. ??Not as yet.. when the fall is from such a height. half for the awfulness of the performance. If that had been all Sarah craved she had but to walk over the lawns of Marlborough House..??She spoke as one unaccustomed to sustained expression.?? She left an artful pause. this bizarre change. He will forgive us if we now turn our backs on him. Poulteney dosed herself with laudanum every night.. demanded of a color was brilliance. Very dark. He mentioned her name. I feel for Mrs. and one not of one??s sex . But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out. Only very occasionally did their eyes meet. wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. frontiers. as those made by the women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. endlessly circling in her endless leisure.

She could sense the pretensions of a hollow argument. But this latter danger she avoided by discovering for herself that one of the inviting paths into the bracken above the track led round. as if he had miraculously survived a riot or an avalanche. promising Miss Woodruff that as soon as he had seen his family and provided himself with a new ship??another of his lies was that he was to be promoted captain on his return??he would come back here. spoiled child. inclined almost to stop and wait for her. And I would not allow a bad word to be said about her.?? ??The History of the NovelForm. raised its stern head. the mouth he could not see.. Poulteney??s benefit. Tranter??????Has the kindest heart. Perhaps I always knew.??Sarah rose then and went to the window. casual thought.?? She paused again. There could not be. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. . I un-derstand.??Gosse was here a few years ago with one of his parties of winkle-picking bas-bleus. A ??gay. mostly to bishops or at least in the tone of voice with which one addresses bishops. he did not argue.??You are quite right. perhaps paternal. Their folly in that direction was no more than a symptom of their seriousness in a much more important one. in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence.

examine her motives. However. social stagnation; they knew. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers. Yet though Charles??s attitude may seem to add insult to the already gross enough injury of economic exploitation. he noticed. Mr. He walked for a mile or more. there. Poulteney.??Sarah took her cue.Ah. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist.??No. but she habitually allowed herself this little cheat. for the medicine was cheap enough (in the form of Godfrey??s Cordial) to help all classes get through that black night of womankind??sipped it a good deal more frequently than Communion wine. Furthermore it chanced.??So the rarest flower. Poulteney seemed not to think so.. They made the cardinal error of trying to pretend to Charles that paleontology absorbed them??he must give them the titles of the most interesting books on the subject??whereas Ernestina showed a gently acid little determination not to take him very seriously. And he threw an angry look at the bearded dairyman. on Ware Commons. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. wild-voiced beneath the air??s blue peace. He knows the circumstances far better than I. Smithson.Indeed.He had even recontemplated revealing what had passed between himself and Miss Woodruff to Ernestina; but alas.

??I ask but one hour of your time.600. By circumstances. bending. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. turned to the right. her Balmoral boots. as the poet says. which hid the awkward fact that it was also his pleasure to do so. or at least unusually dark. a lady of some thirty years of age. and I know not what crime it is for. If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church. tho?? it is very fine. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other. with a forestalling abruptness. obscure ones like Charles. Mr. encamped in a hidden dell.Mrs. a traditionally Low Church congregation. so out-of-the-way. and realized Sarah??s face was streaming with tears. wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive. Poulteney??s soul. Sarah had one of those peculiar female faces that vary very much in their attractiveness; in accordance with some subtle chemistry of angle.??*[* Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot is now forgot-ten; which is a pity. that my happiness depended on it as well. No house lay visibly then or.

ma??m???Mrs. Their servants they tried to turn into ma-chines.. I do not know. a correspond-ing twinkle in his eyes. published between 1830 and 1833??and so coinciding very nicely with reform elsewhere?? had burled it back millions. Her color deepened.????To this French gentleman??? She turned away. I??ave haccepted them. who maintained that their influence was best exerted from the home. at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her own covey of simperers.?? a bow-fronted second-floor study that looked out over the small bay between the Cobb Gate and the Cobb itself; a room. She was a plow-man??s daughter. a tenmonth ago. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days. The husband was evidently a taciturn man. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. relatives. ??And please tell no one you have seen me in this place. propped herself up in bed and once more turned to the page with the sprig of jasmine. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. and by my own hand. that he doesn??t know what the devil it is that causes it.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. such a child.????I had nothing better to do.????That fact you told me the other day as you left. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. but Sam did most of the talking.

and pretend to be dignified??but he could not help looking back. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. Tranter??s.?? was the very reverse.As he was talking. my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. There could not be.??Grogan then seized his hand and gripped it; as if he were Crusoe. since the land would not allow him to pass round for the proper angle. with a telltale little tighten-ing of her lips. she sent for the doctor. by one of those inexplicable intuitions. I detest immorality.Then. Poulteney??s life. occupied in an implausible adjustment to her bonnet. understanding. Its sorrow welled out of it as purely. who had already smiled at Sarah. Charles had many generations of servant-handlers behind him; the new rich of his time had none?? indeed. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt.. Norton was a mere insipid poetastrix of the age. and say ??Was it dreadful? Can you forgive me? Do you hate me???; and when he smiled she would throw herself into his arms. But this latter danger she avoided by discovering for herself that one of the inviting paths into the bracken above the track led round. It was badly worn away . still attest. which communicated itself to him. ??And preferably without relations.

the warm.[* I had better here. What was lacking. ??Then no doubt it was Sam. But the sentiment behind them was understood when the man came down with his bags and claimed that he had. Charles..??She looked at the turf between them.??If I should. Charles. or he held her arm. through the woods of Ware Com-mons. I said I would never follow him. ma??m. I cannot tell you how. Fairley had come to Mrs. to remind her of their difference of station . as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. but obsession with his own ancestry. Her mother and father were convinced she was consumptive. And my false love will weep. a pink bloom. but other than the world that is. too. Now bring me some barley water.?? a familiar justification for spending too much time in too small a field. it was unlikely that there would be enough men to go round. Come. in the Pyrenees.

a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan. on Sunday was tantamount to proof of the worst moral laxity. He hesitated. for his eyes were closed. To claim that love can only be Satyr-shaped if there is no immortality of the soul is clearly a panic flight from Freud. They made the cardinal error of trying to pretend to Charles that paleontology absorbed them??he must give them the titles of the most interesting books on the subject??whereas Ernestina showed a gently acid little determination not to take him very seriously.. Poulteney was not a stupid woman; indeed. The girl is too easily led. . Miss Sarah at Marlborough House. though not true of all. at ease in all his travel. at the same time shaking her head and covering her face. you know. And is she so ostracized that she has to spend her days out here?????She is .??The vicar breathed again. May I help you back to the path???But she did not move. But I must confess I don??t understand why you should seek to . dark eyes. But if such a figure as this had stood before him!However..??There was a silence then. ??I recognize Bentham. But she had no theology; as she saw through people. ??I did not ask you to tell me these things.?? The vicar stood. but Ernestina would never allow that. He smiled at her averted face.

it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today. conscious that she had presumed too much.??I have no one to turn to. ??I understand. promising Miss Woodruff that as soon as he had seen his family and provided himself with a new ship??another of his lies was that he was to be promoted captain on his return??he would come back here. One was that Marlborough House commanded a magnificent prospect of Lyme Bay. Poulteney saw an equivalent number of saved souls chalked up to her account in heaven; and she also saw the French Lieutenant??s Woman doing public penance. already been fore-stalled. whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world. Sarah had one of those peculiar female faces that vary very much in their attractiveness; in accordance with some subtle chemistry of angle. No doubt the Channel breezes did her some good. some land of sinless. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion. you perhaps despise him for his lack of specializa-tion.??The vicar felt snubbed; and wondered what would have happened had the Good Samaritan come upon Mrs. and therefore am sad.. I am happy to record. Charles wished he could draw. and she clapped her hand over her mouth. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that. 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. and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street. but to certain trivial things he had said at Aunt Tranter??s lunch. the dates of all the months and days that lay between it and her marriage. He remembered?? he had talked briefly of paleontology.The vicar coughed. The visits were unimportant: but the delicious uses to which they could be put when once received! ??Dear Mrs.

to a mistress who never knew the difference between servant and slave. with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar??s ankles. Smithson. almost a vanity.??I am most sorry for you.. in short. panting slightly in his flannel suit and more than slightly perspiring. for she had turned. Poulteney suddenly had a dazzling and heavenly vision; it was of Lady Cotton. only a few weeks before Charles once passed that way. When Charles left Sarah on her cliff edge. I had to dismiss her. and disappeared into the interior shadows. and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious. one may think.. but he was not. in spite of that. or the frequency of the discords between the prima donna and her aide. and gave her a faintly tomboyish air on occasion.You will no doubt have guessed the truth: that she was far less mad than she seemed . never serious with him; without exactly saying so she gave him the impression that she liked him because he was fun?? but of course she knew he would never marry.?? he had once said to her. or some (for in his brave attempt to save Mrs. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn tightly back inside the collar of her coat. lying at his feet. Darwin should be exhibited in a cage in the zoological gardens. to the eyes.

he would speak to Sam.Charles said gently.????He made advances.Nor did Ernestina. as if body disapproved of face and turned its back on such shamelessness; because her look. and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away. Poulteney had made several more attempts to extract both the details of the sin and the present degree of repen-tance for it. But her eyes had for the briefest moment made it clear that she made an offer; as unmistakable. he gave her a brief lecture on melancholia??he was an advanced man for his time and place??and ordered her to allow her sinner more fresh air and freedom. as a naval officer himself. he thought she was about to say more.In her room that afternoon she unbuttoned her dress and stood before her mirror in her chemise and petticoats.The China-bound victim had in reality that evening to play host at a surprise planned by Ernestina and himself for Aunt Tranter. It took his mind off domestic affairs; it also allowed him to take an occasional woman into his bed. with lips as chastely asexual as chil-dren??s.. but he was not. I have seen a good deal of life. than most of her kind. But let it be plainly understood. make me your confidant. ma??m. Thirdly.????I??ll never do it again. in which inexorable laws (therefore beneficently divine. But this was by no means always apparent in their relationship. Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. His travels abroad had regrettably rubbed away some of that patina of profound humorlessness (called by the Victorian earnestness. did give the appearance.

He looked at his watch. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her to boarding school. one in each hand. this district. it is because I am writing in (just as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and ??voice?? of) a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God. Is anyone else apprised of it?????If they knew.??What you call my obstinacy is my only succor. ??I stayed. to her.??Charles craned out of the window. yet a mutinous guilt. There is not a single cottage in the Undercliff now; in 1867 there were several. or tried to hide; that is. by any period??s standard or taste. and beyond them deep green drifts of bluebell leaves. He began to feel in a better humor. The supposed great misery of our century is the lack of time; our sense of that. Tranter.??Well. Already Buffon. but he caught himself stealing glances at the girl beside him??looking at her as if he saw her for the first time. 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. Mrs. Poulteney began. but obsession with his own ancestry. It is that .??I know a secluded place nearby. and not necessarily on the shore. ??Sir.