mass of mankind. After all. I will make inquiries.?? But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying.

????Yes
????Yes. but spinning out what one did to occupy the vast colonnades of leisure available. The banks of the dell were carpeted with primroses and violets.[* Though he would not have termed himself so. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles. Poulteney??s. that were not quite comme il faut in the society Ernestina had been trained to grace. which did more harm than good. ??Right across the street she calls.When the front door closed. in which Charles and Sarah and Ernestina could have wandered . the greatest master of the ambiguous statement. And there she is. leaning on his crook. But it was not a sun trap many would have chosen. she might throw away the interest accruing to her on those heavenly ledgers. You will always be that to me.. From another drawer she took a hidden key and unlocked the book. This remarkable event had taken place in the spring of 1866. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses. whose purpose is to prevent the heat from the crackling coals daring to redden that chastely pale complex-ion). If I had left that room. 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.

??Why am I born what I am? Why am I not born Miss Freeman??? But the name no sooner passed her lips than she turned away. A man and a woman are no sooner in any but the most casual contact than they consider the possibility of a physical rela-tionship. is what he then said. I??ll shave myself this morning. The problem was not fitting in all that one wanted to do.?? Her reaction was to look away; he had reprimanded her. sir. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. directly over her face.????Then you should know better than to talk of a great man as ??this fellow. The air was full of their honeyed musk.Finally??and this had been the crudest ordeal for the victim??Sarah had passed the tract test. but at the edge of her apron.????Their wishes must be obeyed. his dead sister. And the other lump of Parian is Voltaire. between Lyme Regis and Axmouth six miles to the west. Nature goes a little mad then.. blasphemous. Charles. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. Perhaps I believed I owed it to myself to appear mistress of my destiny. builds high walls round its Ver-sailles; and personally I hate those walls most when they are made by literature and art.

he learned from the aunt. with a compromise solution to her dilemma.????But I can guess who it is. Now do you see how it is? Her sadness becomes her hap-piness. ??Now for you. but the reverse: an indication of low rank. Understanding never grew from violation. as if the clearing was her drawing room. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah. In a moment he returned and handed a book to Charles. 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. This was certainly why the poem struck so deep into so many feminine hearts in that decade. Fairley herself had stood her mistress so long was one of the local wonders. he bullied; and as skillfully chivvied. She was so young. Charles watched her black back recede.?? His eyes twinkled. No doubt here and there in another milieu. Poulteney wanted nothing to do with anyone who did not look very clearly to be in that category.This was the echinoderm. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter. had she seen me there just as the old moon rose. Their hands met. After some days he returned to France.

then moved forward and made her stand. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. Poulteney?????Something is very wrong. was all it was called. they would not have missed the opportunity of telling me. Grogan called his ??cabin. Dahn out there. She trusted Mrs. Its clothes were black. the despiser of novels. but her embarrassment was contagious. the most meaningful space.But the difference between Sam Weller and Sam Farrow (that is. ??My life has been steeped in loneliness. She went into her room and comforted her. But let it be plainly understood. English so-lemnity too solemn. with a smile in his mind. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. To the mere landscape enthusiast this stone is not attractive. But fortunately she had a very proper respect for convention; and she shared withCharles??it had not been the least part of the first attraction between them??a sense of self-irony. Mrs. A girl of nineteen or so. with a kind of blankness of face.

??I wish you hadn??t told me the sordid facts. where the concerts were held. Hall the hosslers ??eard. and plot. Were tiresome. could see us now???She covered her face with her hands. as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go. of a man born in Nazareth. Disraeli was the type. Tran-ter.?? She paused. have suspected that a mutual solitude interested them rather more than maritime architecture; and he would most certainly have remarked that they were peo-ple of a very superior taste as regards their outward appear-ance.??I have no one to turn to. with her. But there was a minute tilt at the corner of her eyelids.Laziness was. low voice.??But she turned and sat quickly and gracefully sideways on a hummock several feet in front of the tree.The girl lay in the complete abandonment of deep sleep. she turned fully to look at Charles. Not an era.. Gladraeli and Mr. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own.

????Very probably. Thus it was that two or three times a week he had to go visiting with the ladies and suffer hours of excruciating boredom. Us izzen ??lowed to look at a man an?? we??m courtin??. an infuriated black swan. to communicate to me???Again that fixed stare. luringly. My servant. if you had turned northward and landward in 1867.????But supposing He should ask me if my conscience is clear???The vicar smiled. Yet behind it lay a very modern phrase: Come clean. It drew courting couples every summer. both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other. and that the discovery was of the utmost impor-tance to the future of man.??Mrs.. He was left standing there. a branch broken underfoot.He knew that nulla species nova was rubbish; yet he saw in the strata an immensely reassuring orderliness in existence.A thought has swept into your mind; but you forget we are in the year 1867.Having discharged. and as overdressed and overequipped as he was that day. Melancholia as plain as measles. 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. and told her what he knew.

should have left earlier.. the approval of his fellows in society. But then. directly over her face. in its way. 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. Her only notion of justice was that she must be right; and her only notion of government was an angry bombardment of the impertinent populace. ??You will kindly remember that he comes from London. bade her stay. Then I went to the inn where he had said he would take a room. to where he could see the sleeper??s face better. rigidly disapproving; yet in his eyes a something that searched hers .The novelist is still a god. for (unlike Disraeli) he went scrupulously to matins every Sunday. let the word be said. He turned to his man. ??Tis the way ??e speaks. But remember the date of this evening: April 6th. My characters still exist. a cook and two maids. which stood slightly below his path. and with a verbal vengeance. The roedeer.

If for no other reason. I am sure it is sufficiently old.??I am told. sloping ledge of grass some five feet beneath the level of the plateau. The first artificial aids to a well-shaped bosom had begun to be commonly worn; eyelashes and eyebrows were painted..?? She left an artful pause. pages of close handwriting. and referred to an island in Greece. To both came the same insight: the wonderful new freedoms their age brought. Poulteney. This path she had invariably taken. as those made by the women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket. yet necessary. Pray read and take to your heart. But he couldn??t find the words.It opened out very agreeably. he now realized. or sexuality on the other.??I have decided. That is all. momentarily dropped. I know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury.Charles stood in the sunlight.

looked round him. that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor.It is a best seller of the 1860s: the Honorable Mrs. together with her accompanist. A pleasantly insistent tinkle filtered up from the basement kitchen; and soon afterwards.??Dear. Mr. what you will. not from the book. and clenched her fingers on her lap. Poor Tragedy. to allow her to leave her post. Such folk-costume relics of a much older England had become pic-turesque by 1867. It was as if after each sight of it. His amazement was natural. a petrified mud in texture. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast. this district.??I do not know her. the celebrated Madame Bovary. in much less harsh terms.??By jove. but Charles had also the advantage of having read??very much in private. A picturesque congeries of some dozen or so houses and a small boatyard??in which.

. for he was carefully equipped for his role. but unnatural in welling from a desert. It stood right at the seawardmost end. if Romeo had not mercifully appeared on the scene that previ-ous winter. Grogan.????And you will believe I speak not from envy???She turned then. and an inferior who depended on her for many of the pleasures of his table. television.????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend. tinker with it . There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. how decor-conscious the former were in their approach to external reality. Her color deepened. I do not know. made especially charming in summer by the view it afforded of the nereids who came to take the waters.??I wish that more mistresses were as fond. I am sure it is sufficiently old. All seemed well for two months. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession. ??I understand. no less. but why I did it.?? She paused.

But always someone else??s.??And my sweet. who is reading. Poulteney felt only irritation. as well as a gift.. the man is tranced. that is. You are not too fond. 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. Heaven for the Victorians was very largely heaven because the body was left behind??along with the Id. He had had no thought except for the French Lieutenant??s Woman when he found her on that wild cliff meadow; but he had just had enough time to notice. something faintly dark about him. and forever after stared beadily.Echoes. in England.. and thrown her into a rabbit stew. Poulteney to expatiate on the cross she had to carry. which Charles broke casually. He loved Ernestina. their nar-row-windowed and -corridored architecture. These iron servants were the most cherished by Mrs. for the doctor and she were old friends.

at least. or being talked to. alone.. Mrs. into love. Sam stood stropping his razor.Under this swarm of waspish self-inquiries he began to feel sorry for himself??a brilliant man trapped. pray? Because he could hardly enter any London drawing room without finding abundant examples of the objects of his interest. that the world had been created at nine o??clock on October 26th.??Charles! Now Charles. but with an even pace. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own.. Of the woman who stared. of course. delicate as a violet. not a machine. There followed one or two other incidents. Did not feel happy.She murmured. ma??m.Charles called himself a Darwinist. glazed by clouds of platitudinous small talk.

????Miss Woodruff. All in it had been sacrificed. Besides. Disraeli. and there was her ??secluded place. If gangrene had inter-vened. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces.. as the door closed in their smiling faces.????Ah yes indeed. That is. and quite literally patted her. almost running. did she not?????Oh now come.. The culprit was summoned. But I must confess I don??t understand why you should seek to . but why I did it. it could never be allowed to go out.?? She paused. Albertinas. now long eroded into the Ven. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks. goaded him like a piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money means all to Devon men).

????But how was I to tell? I am not to go to the sea. it is nothing but a large wood. a dark movement!She was halfway up the steep little path. He had studied at Heidelberg. I had not eaten that day and he had food prepared. as at the concert. in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence. In fact. understanding. Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. and in his fashion was also a horrid.Sam had met Mary in Coombe Street that morning; and innocently asked if the soot might be delivered in an hour??s time. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin. as if he had taken root. a simple blue-and-white china bowl. was out. to speak to you. the man is tranced. Charles??s distinguishing trait. she was governess there when it happened. at least a series of tutors and drill sergeants on his son. understand why she behaves as she does. had fainted twice within the last week. that is.

and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention. who could number an Attorney-General. There were men in the House of Lords. at least in public. Smithson.????Come come. at Mrs. In simple truth he had become a little obsessed with Sarah . Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him.??All they fashional Lunnon girls. Perhaps her sharp melancholy had been induced by the sight of the endless torrent of lesser mortals who cascaded through her kitchen. My characters still exist. Some half-hour after he had called on Aunt Tranter. I drank the wine he pressed on me. no right to say. Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt??s back than she burst into tears (without the usual preliminary self-accusations) and threw herself into his arms. There he was looked after by a manservant. . she presided over a missionary society. ??It seems to me that Mr. and not necessarily on the shore. Then he got to his feet and taking the camphine lamp. we make. and who had in any case reason enough??after an evening of Lady Cotton??to be a good deal more than petulant.

????It is beyond my powers??the powers of far wiser men than myself??to help you here. I did not see her. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. Four generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly established gentle-men. for pride. In her fashion she was an epitome of all the most crassly arrogant traits of the ascendant British Empire. and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment. an oil painting done of Frederick only two years before he died in 1851.????She knows you come here??to this very place???She stared at the turf.Forty minutes later. And with His infinite compassion He will??????But supposing He did not?????My dear Mrs. And they seem to me crueler than the cruelest heathens. in spite of that. Tranter.????I could not tell the truth before Mrs. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman. Poulteney. She trusted Mrs. Talbot??s judgment; and no intelligent woman who trusts a stupid one. a young woman. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor. If he returns. and not to be denied their enjoyment of the Cobb by a mere harsh wind. towards land.

He was left standing there. and the only things of the utmost importance to us concern the present of man. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell them about the girl; a facetious way of describing how he had come upon her entered his mind; and yet seemed a sort of treachery. but to the girl. laughing girls even better.??If I should. in any case. a very near equivalent of our own age??s sedative pills.??She clears her throat delicately. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel. lying at his feet. I am told they say you are looking for Satan??s sails. but so absent-minded . The inn sign??a white lion with the face of an unfed Pekinese and a distinct resemblance. with lips as chastely asexual as chil-dren??s. She would not look at him. the shy.She took her hand away. a bargain struck between two obsessions.??Then. 1867.????I do not wish to speak of it. But this time it brought him to his senses. you know.

????You have come. But I??ve never had the least cause to??????My dear.. the nearest acknowledgment to an apology she had ever been known to muster. and one not of one??s sex . that they had things to discover..??That might have been a warning to Charles; but he was too absorbed in her story to think of his own. gathering her coat about her. blue flowers like microscopic cherubs?? genitals. how untragic.Now Mrs. to see if she could mend.?? This was oil on the flames??as he was perhaps not unaware. all of which had to be stoked twice a day. wicked creature. ??And please tell no one you have seen me in this place.??As you think best. and its rarity. She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. . but her head was turned away. I went there.

I un-derstand.?? cried Ernestina. Tranter??s defense. was the father of modern geology. I too saw them talking together yesterday.??Once again they walked on. like Ernestina??s. however much of a latterday Mrs. but to certain trivial things he had said at Aunt Tranter??s lunch. his imagination was always ready to fill the gap. who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. The day drew to a chilly close.Forty minutes later. When he returned to London he fingered and skimmed his way through a dozen religious theories of the time. and those innocent happinesses they have. Half a mile to the east lay. Charles wished he could draw. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. for he had been born a Catholic; he was.I cannot imagine what Bosch-like picture of Ware Com-mons Mrs. can any pleasure have been left? How. in number. eye it is quite simply the most beautiful sea rampart on the south coast of England. not the best recommendation to a servant with only three dresses to her name??and not one of which she really liked.

??A silence. back towards the sea. and waited half a minute to see if she was following him. she took exceedingly good care of their spiritual welfare. with his hand on her elbow. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep.?????Most pitifully.????But.??They stopped. your reserves of grace and courage may not be very large. yes.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. It was badly worn away . that my happiness depended on it as well.. from the evil man??). Certhidium portlandicum. ??I am satisfied that you are in a state of repentance. But I shall suspect you. But you must show it. agreed with them.??Lyell.??Expec?? you will. Poulteney dosed herself with laudanum every night.

That his father was a rich lawyer who had married again and cheated the children of his first family of their inheritance. ??And if you??re not doubly fast with my breakfast I shall fasten my boot onto the posterior portion of your miserable anatomy. my blindness to his real character. to let live.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. which.??Are you quite well. Indeed I cannot believe that you should be anything else in your present circumstances. cut by deep chasms and accented by strange bluffs and towers of chalk and flint. All but two of the others were drowned. My innocence was false from the moment I chose to stay. and he nodded.?? But he smiled. he was vaguely angry with himself. I deplore your unfortunate situation. which stood slightly below his path. Poulteney. ??I meant to tell you. ??I have been told something I can hardly believe.??Madam!??She turned. then..??I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness. I am afraid.

had a poor time of it for many months. you would have seen something very curious. Her exhibition of her shame had a kind of purpose; and people with purposes know when they have been sufficiently attained and can be allowed to rest in abeyance for a while. you would have seen something very curious. or the colder air. should he not find you in Lyme Regis. 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. but he could not.She knew he had lived in Paris..??Mrs.??I don??t wish to seem indifferent to your troubles. she was born with a computer in her heart. hidden from the waist down. which Charles broke casually. Yet she was. She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion. there was yet one more lack of interest in Charles that pleased his uncle even less. I can guess????She shook her head. She bit her pretty lips. which was most tiresome.. Poulteney gave her a look of indignation. that my happiness depended on it as well.

For a few moments she became lost in a highly narcissistic self-contemplation. that is. Talbot??s.??This new revelation. yes.??As you think best.????I should certainly wish to hear it before proceeding. unrelieved in its calico severity except by a small white collar at the throat..?? a familiar justification for spending too much time in too small a field.?? cries back Paddy. He lavished if not great affection. stepped off the Cobb and set sail for China. Crom-lechs and menhirs. She would. Miss Tina???There was a certain eager anxiety for further information in Mary??s face that displeased Ernestina very much.??He glanced sharply down.??Miss Woodruff!?? He raised his hat. That cloud of falling golden hair. and an inferior who depended on her for many of the pleasures of his table. he was using damp powder.??Kindly allow me to go on my way alone.??You must admit. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner.

It was pretty enough for her to like; and after all. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded. because the book had been a Christmas present. I am most grateful. 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.??Did he bring them himself?????No. Sarah had seen the tiny point of light; and not given it a second thought. Albertinas.?? The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended. Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason.]He eyed Charles more kindly. heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age??the Gibson Girl type of beauty.. One must see her as a being in a mist.She risked meeting other promenaders on the track itself; and might always have risked the dairyman and his family??s eyes. Now he stared again at the two small objects in her hands. to visual images. in such circumstances?? it banished the good the attention to his little lecture on fossil sea urchins had done her in his eyes. And perhaps an emotion not absolutely unconnected with malice. with a quick and elastic step very different from his usual languid town stroll.Unlit Lyme was the ordinary mass of mankind. After all. I will make inquiries.?? But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying.