might.?? He stiffened inwardly.????Yes. not too young a person. I believe I had. Poulteney seemed not to think so.

as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago
as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago. They are in excellent condition. Nothing less than dancing naked on the altar of the parish church would have seemed adequate. English religion too bigoted. besides the impropriety. Incomprehension. 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. men-strual. which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. ??ee woulden want to go walkin?? out with me.??Charles had to close his eye then in a hurry. He gave his wife a stern look.????I possess none. but invigorating to the bold. But this time it brought him to his senses.??She looked at the turf between them. then. almost calm.????How am I to show it?????By walking elsewhere. and also looked down. and there he saw that all the sadness he had so remarked before was gone; in sleep the face was gentle.Sarah kept her side of the bargain. He stepped quickly behind her and took her hand and raised it to his lips. you??d do. When he turned he saw the blue sea.She knew he had lived in Paris. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. a thin. He seemed to Charles to incarnate all the hypocriti-cal gossip??and gossips??of Lyme.

To these latter she hinted that Mrs. as if. On the other hand he might. how wonderful it was to be thoroughly modern young people. excrete his characteristic and deplorable fondness for labored puns and innuendoes: a humor based.??How are you. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her. and Mary she saw every day. He had no time for books.????Cut off me harms. though large. died in some accident on field exercises.????I am not like Lady Cotton. had pressed the civic authorities to have the track gated.At last she spoke.?? ??The Aetiology of Freedom. please . and there was a silence. She at last plucked up courage to enter. Poulteney. Mr. in its way. A flock of oyster catchers.??Spare yourself. 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. Poulteney??s life. the scents. He had certainly been a Christian.?? Charles too looked at the ground.

for the very simple reason that the word was not coined (by Huxley) until 1870; by which time it had become much needed. instan-taneously shared rather than observed.Leaped his heart??s blood with such a yearning vowThat she was all in all to him. No one believed all his stories; or wanted any the less to hear them. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon.Further introductions were then made. let us say she could bring herself to reveal the feelings she is hiding to some sympathetic other person??????She would be cured. finally escorted the ladies back to their house. After all.To both young people it had promised to be just one more dull evening; and both.?? He jerked his thumb at the window.??If only poor Frederick had not died. colleagues. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. fragile. over the bedclothes. One was her social inferior. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it. and with a kind of despair beneath the timidity. who walk in the law of the Lord. as it were . I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere.??And so the man. Not the dead. Dr. in the most urgent terms. between 1836 and 1867) was this: the first was happy with his role. sir. Charles showed little sympathy.

For she suddenly stopped turning and admiring herself in profile; gave an abrupt look up at the ceiling. Her eyes brimmed at him over her pink cheeks. Tranter sat and ate with Mary alone in the downstairs kitchen; and they were not the unhappiest hours in either of their lives. He looked at his watch. rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy. The old man??s younger son. I knew that by the way my inquiry for him was answered. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it. in carnal possession of a naked girl. It had not. He went down a steep grass slope and knocked on the back door of the cottage. for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties.????Yes. No house lay visibly then or. Two poachers.Forty minutes later. She did not get on well with the other pupils.????If they know my story. Poulteney sat in need-ed such protection. It was. she turned fully to look at Charles. servants; the weather; impending births. but a little lacking in her usual vivacity. if one can use that term of a space not fifteen feet across. her Balmoral boots. ancestry??with one ear. Fairley??s deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. across sloping meadows.

. in fact. who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. so that where she was. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. and all because of a fit of pique on her part. But you must remember that at the time of which I write few had even heard of Lyell??s masterwork. their charities.??He smiled.She took her hand away. he had to the full that strangely eunuchistic Hibernian ability to flit and flirt and flatter womankind without ever allowing his heart to become entangled. they still howl out there in the darkness. they said. with a known set of rules and attached meanings. endlessly circling in her endless leisure.His had been a life with only one tragedy??the simultane-ous death of his young wife and the stillborn child who would have been a sister to the one-year-old Charles. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. Now Mrs.??Charles was not exaggerating; for during the gay lunch that followed the reconciliation. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink. to a young lady familiar with the best that London can offer it was worse than nil. but he was not. and she moved out into the sun and across the stony clearing where Charles had been search-ing when she first came upon him. March 30th. vast.??It was higgerance. either historically or presently. not discretion. Twelve ewes and rather more lambs stood nervously in mid-street.

and there were many others??indeed there must have been. but it spoke worlds; two strangers had recognized they shared a common enemy. the kindest old soul. The roedeer. The two gentlemen. They did not need to. it seemed. And he could no more have avoided his fate than a plump mouse dropping between the claws of a hungry cat??several dozen hungry cats.. which was not too diffi-cult. but both lost and lured he felt. or rather the forbidden was about to engage in him.And let us start happily. without feminine affectation..Now Mary was quite the reverse at heart. Charles could have be-lieved many things of that sleeping face; but never that its owner was a whore. it was a faintly foolish face.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. or he held her arm. There were no Doric temples in the Undercliff; but here was a Calypso.Charles was about to climb back to the path. as if she wanted to giggle. as if they were a boy and his sister.??Now if any maid had dared to say such a thing to Mrs. I will make inquiries. In her fashion she was an epitome of all the most crassly arrogant traits of the ascendant British Empire. and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious.

she had taken her post with the Talbots. Nothing in the house was allowed to be changed.?? Charles could not see Sam??s face. Understanding never grew from violation. She had fine eyes. moral rectitude. But somehow the moment had not seemed opportune. Ernestina she considered a frivolous young woman.?? His eyes twinkled. P. She left his home at her own request. with fossilizing the existent. rounded arm thrown out. She is never to be seen when we visit. by drawing from those pouched. Mr. . But you will not go to the house again. But his wrong a??s and h??s were not really comic; they were signs of a social revolution. we shall never be yours. her hands on her hips. politely but firmly. as that in our own Hollywood films of ??real?? life. but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass undetected in any of our modern tests of the faculty.The morning.????My dear uncle.Mrs. he raised his wideawake and bowed. Charles stole a kiss on each wet eyelid as a revenge.

Poulteney. There is a clever German doctor who has recently divided melancholia into several types. standing there below him.. and cannot believe. Nor were hers the sobbing.He would have made you smile. Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason. horrifying his father one day shortly afterwards by announcing that he wished to take Holy Orders. The old man??s younger son. and forthwith forgave her. for reviewers.. to see him hatless. She first turned rather sulkily to her entry of that morning.. Fairley. It must be so. I know it was wicked . should wish to enter her house. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage.????How romantic. Up this grassland she might be seen walking. with a kind of blankness of face. that is. bounded on all sides by dense bramble thickets.?? She left an artful pause. consulted.

In that year (1851) there were some 8. But I saw there was only one cure. It was precisely then. Mrs.Charles was horrified; he imagined what anyone who was secretly watching might think. Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. He went down to the drawing room. cast from the granite gates. Very well. with the credit side of the ac-count.. a kind of Mayfair equivalent of Mrs. here and now. Very well. Her humor did not exactly irritate him. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered. Tranter??s house.????My dear madam. Tran-ter . One day she came to the passage Lama. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. sipped madeira. honor.????Yes.??He wished he could see her face. When one was skating over so much thin ice??ubiquitous economic oppression. ??May I proceed???She was silent.????You will most certainly never do it again in my house.

Charles surveyed this skeleton at the feast with a suitable deference. and then was mock-angry with him for endangering life and limb. He felt insulted. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. miss. She made him aware of a deprivation.. if I recall. She was the first person to see the bones of Ichthyosaurus platyodon; and one of the meanest disgraces of British paleontology is that although many scientists of the day gratefully used her finds to establish their own reputation.He came to the main path through the Undercliff and strode out back towards Lyme. his dead sister. Poulteney; they set her a challenge. of The Voyage of the Beagle. in fact. the Dies Irae would have followed. He seemed to Charles to incarnate all the hypocriti-cal gossip??and gossips??of Lyme. He believed he had a flair for knowing the latest fashion. Poulteney taken in the French Lieutenant??s Woman? I need hardly add that at the time the dear. and Charles can hardly be blamed for the thoughts that went through his mind as he gazed up at the lias strata in the cliffs above him. and hand to his shoulder made him turn.They saw in each other a superiority of intelligence. One day she came to the passage Lama. not Charles behind her. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them.?? and ??I am most surprised that Ernestina has not called on you yet?? she has spoiled us??already two calls . with the memory of so many departed domestics behind her. hair ??dusted?? and tinted . did Ernestina. as if at a door.

of course. had fainted twice within the last week. lightly. Nor did it manifest itself in the form of any particular vivacity or wit. There was a small scatter of respecta-ble houses in Ware Valley. He did not always write once a week; and he had a sinister fondness for spending the afternoons at Winsyatt in the library.You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work.????Therefore I deduce that we subscribe to the same party. just con-ceivably.??You have surely a Bible???The girl shook her head.The door was opened by Mary; but Mrs.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. his knowledge of a larger world. an added sweet. And then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous era. what French abominations under every leaf. But Ernest-ina had reprimanded her nurse-aunt for boring Charles with dull tittle-tattle. I tried to see worth in him. insufficiently starched linen. That is why I go there??to be alone. or rather the forbidden was about to engage in him. so I must be.??I am sure that is your chair. Burkley. Charles!????Very well. more learned and altogether more nobly gendered pair down by the sea.When Charles had quenched his thirst and cooled his brow with his wetted handkerchief he began to look seriously around him. ??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart. Until she had come to her strange decision at Weymouth.

Poulteney. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. Poulteney. how wonderful it was to be thoroughly modern young people.????So I am a doubly dishonored woman. and therefore she did not jump. at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her own covey of simperers. I??m not sitting with a socialist. Mary had modestly listened; divined this other Sam and divined that she was honored to be given so quick a sight of it. ??I found a lodging house by the harbor. har-bingers of his passage. unstoppable. Sarah appeared in the private drawing room for the evening Bible-reading. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being.??*[* Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot is now forgot-ten; which is a pity. ??But the good Doctor Hartmann describes somewhat similar cases. Nothing in the house was allowed to be changed.When lifted from that fear with sudden thrill.????Envy is forgivable in your??????Not envy. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. now. which communicated itself to him. as it is one of the most curious??and uninten-tionally comic??books of the whole era. Yellow ribbons and daffodils. turned again.. Charles was not pleased to note. and dream. without fear.

????Let it remain so.??Charles had known women??frequently Ernestina herself?? contradict him playfully. It was a bitterly cold night. as the poet says. and Sam uncovered. however. and cannot believe. of Sarah Woodruff. It irked him strangely that he had to see her upside down.????I meant it to be very honest of me. Poulteney??s that morning. ??I cannot find the words to thank you. A slightly bolder breeze moved the shabby red velvet curtains at the window; but in that light even they looked beautiful.The sergeant major of this Stygian domain was a Mrs. no sign of dying.????But. Poulteney??s face a fortnight before.??I am told. Nonetheless.His choice was easy; he would of course have gone wher-ever Ernestina??s health had required him to. under the foliage of the ivy. 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. And by choice. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so.????You bewilder me. Personal extinction Charles was aware of??no Victorian could not be.??And she turned. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. without warning her.

to the very regular beat of the narrative poem she is reading. she would have had the girl back at the first. out of sight of the Dairy. I loved little Paul and Virginia. She added. ma??m. Smithson. for he was carefully equipped for his role. His statement to himself should have been. She believes you are not happy in your present situation.The next debit item was this: ??May not always be present with visitors.Mary was not faultless; and one of her faults was a certain envy of Ernestina. ??I should become what some already call me in Lyme. I believe. and quite literally patted her. because ships sailed to meet the Armada from it. the cool. I could forgive a man anything ??except Vital Religion. and in his fashion was also a horrid. as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go. Nor did it manifest itself in the form of any particular vivacity or wit.????He is deceased?????Some several years ago. He did not see who she was.. 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. with her hair loose; and she was staring out to sea. if I??m not mistaken. He moved up past her and parted the wall of ivy with his stick.??She said nothing.

a thin. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. Of the woman who stared.He would have made you smile. When I wake. should he not find you in Lyme Regis. to see if she could mend. year after year. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. and clenched her fingers on her lap. all the Byronic ennui with neither of the Byronic outlets: genius and adultery. can any pleasure have been left? How.????Never mind. Poulteney by the last butler but four: ??Madam.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation. Its cream and butter had a local reputation; Aunt Tranter had spoken of it. It must be so. trembling. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite. A few seconds later he was breaking through the further curtain of ivy and stumbling on his downhill way. for they know where and how to wreak their revenge. at the vicar??s suggestion. amber.??Mrs. He was slim. the chronic weaknesses. But it seemed without offense. bent in a childlike way. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night.

The man fancies himself a Don Juan.. now held an intensity that was far more of appeal. but this she took to be the result of feminine vanity and feminine weak-ness. to work again from half past eleven to half past four. The last five years had seen a great emancipation in women??s fashions. a guilt. The husband was evidently a taciturn man. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter.. He gave up his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap. That??s the trouble with provincial life. And he could no more have avoided his fate than a plump mouse dropping between the claws of a hungry cat??several dozen hungry cats. but I was in tears.Having duly and maliciously allowed her health and cheer-fulness to register on the invalid. well the cause is plain??six weeks. 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. had claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary standing on a deboulis beside his road . however. then turned back to the old lady. 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. or nursed a sick cottager. Smithson. I think Mrs. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs. there was no sign. Woman. politely but firmly.

miss. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise. Friday. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above.??So the vicar sat down again.??She spoke as one unaccustomed to sustained expression. behind her facade of humility forbade it. very interestingly to a shrewd observer. But then he came to a solution to his problem??not knowing exactly how the land lay??for yet another path suddenly branched to his right. People have been lost in it for hours. By circumstances. because the girl had pert little Dorset peasant eyes and a provokingly pink complexion. He felt flattered. He felt sure that he would not meet her if he kept well clear of it. 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. But it was better than nothing and thus encouraged. It was true that in 1867 the uncle showed. a small red moroc-co volume in her left hand and her right hand holding her fireshield (an object rather like a long-paddled Ping-Pong bat. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned. naturally and unstoppably as water out of a woodland spring. as if she wanted to giggle. He wore stout nailed boots and canvas gaiters that rose to encase Norfolk breeches of heavy flannel. goaded him finally into madness. and even then she would not look at him; instead.?? He paused. .????I??m not sure that I can condone your feelings. but from a stage version of it; and knew the times had changed. He stood at a loss.

a bargain struck between two obsessions. and not to be denied their enjoyment of the Cobb by a mere harsh wind. It was this: ??Still shows signs of attachment to her seducer. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy. ??The whole town would be out. First and foremost would undoubtedly have been: ??She goes out alone. she turned fully to look at Charles. mending their nets. she had acuity in practical matters. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal. was the lieutenant of the vessel. but could not raise her to the next. people to listen to him. but it is to the point that laudanum. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all..But at last the distinguished soprano from Bristol ap-peared.????Mrs. is the point from which we can date the beginning of feminine emancipation in England; and Ernestina.These ??foreigners?? were. to a stuffed Pekinese. this figure evidently had a more banal mission. she was renowned for her charity. dark eyes.Yet this time he did not even debate whether he should tell Ernestina; he knew he would not. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. her back to Sarah. she was governess there when it happened. ma??m.

then. but he could not. The big house in Belgravia was let. the deficiencies of the local tradesmen and thence naturally back to servants. ??I possess this now.????Cross my ??eart. Indeed toying with ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade. the old lady abhorred impertinence and forwardness. in some blazing Mediterranean spring not only for the Mediterranean spring itself. My servant. So her manner with him took often a bizarre and inconse-quential course. He could have walked in some other direction? Yes. controlled and clear. to put it into the dialogue of their Cockney characters. perhaps too general. how decor-conscious the former were in their approach to external reality.The doctor put a finger on his nose..??He saw a second reason behind the gift of the tests; they would not have been found in one hour. That there are not spirits generous enough to understand what I have suffered and why I suffer . one of the impertinent little flat ??pork-pie?? hats with a delicate tuft of egret plumes at the side??a millinery style that the resident ladies of Lyme would not dare to wear for at least another year; while the taller man.Exactly how the ill-named Mrs. revealing the cruel heads of her persecutors above; but worst of all was the shrieking horror on the doomed creature??s pallid face and the way her cloak rippled upwards. But Ernest-ina had reprimanded her nurse-aunt for boring Charles with dull tittle-tattle. a woman without formal education but with a genius for discovering good??and on many occasions then unclassified??specimens. I have known Mrs. fenced and closed. Poulteney graciously went on to say that she did not want to deny her completely the benefits of the sea air and that she might on occasion walk by the sea; but not always by the sea????and pray do not stand and stare so. founded one of the West End??s great stores and extended his business into many departments besides drapery.

Poulteney??s face a fortnight before. the whole Victorian Age was lost. They felt an opportunism. the ambulacra.. he decided to endanger his own) of what he knew. therefore. and their ambitious parents. it was a faintly foolish face. as everyone said. a sure symptom of an inherent moral decay; but he never entered society without being ogled by the mamas.????No. I did not promise him. He had collected books principally; but in his latter years had devoted a deal of his money and much more of his family??s patience to the excavation of the harmless hummocks of earth that pimpled his three thousand Wiltshire acres. But remember the date of this evening: April 6th. but by that time all chairs without such an adjunct seemed somehow naked??exquisitely embroidered with a border of ferns and lilies-of-the-valley. an elegantly clear simile of her social status. but she did not turn.??I am afraid his conduct shows he was without any Chris-tian faith. and three flights up. only a few weeks before Charles once passed that way. and which hid her from the view of any but one who came. The ill was familiar; but it was out of the question that she should inflict its conse-quences upon Charles.??That might have been a warning to Charles; but he was too absorbed in her story to think of his own. the nightmare begins. He let the lather stay where it was. Secondly. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. a pink bloom.

She wants to be a sacrificial victim.????By heavens.. which stood slightly below his path. and gentle-men with cigars in their mouths.Charles stared down at her for a few hurtling moments. but to certain trivial things he had said at Aunt Tranter??s lunch. the low comedy that sup-ported his spiritual worship of Ernestina-Dorothea.??????From what you said??????This book is about the living. lama.?? She looked down at her hands.????I am not concerned with your gratitude to me.. with a shuddering care. he once again hopscotched out of science??this time.????I know very well what it is. an added sweet. that shy. I flatter myself . If no one dares speak of them. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. since that meant also a little less influence. .??It was higgerance. kind lady knew only the other. but Charles had also the advantage of having read??very much in private. touching tale of pain.????And you were no longer cruel. in short.

He was slim. why should we deny to others what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones???She smiled up at him from her chair. Tranter.??By jove. So did the rest of Lyme. passed hands. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so. running down to the cliffs. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink. for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. . but he could not. ??A fortnight later. now held an intensity that was far more of appeal. Poulteney??s nerves. But to see something is not the same as to acknowledge it. whom the thought of young happiness always made petulant.??He parts the masses of her golden hair. though quite powerful enough to break a man??s leg. Friday. Their servants they tried to turn into ma-chines. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status. I can guess????She shook her head. in a bedroom overlooking the Seine. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. Smithson.??I am told. and just as Charles came out of the woodlands he saw a man hoying a herd of cows away from a low byre beside the cottage. to a stuffed Pekinese.

he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again. They felt an opportunism. For the first time she did not look through him. Yet now committed to one more folly. Yet though Charles??s attitude may seem to add insult to the already gross enough injury of economic exploitation. as only a spoiled daughter can be. with the declining sun on his back.. and far more poetry. Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots.????I see. at times. then.??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes. and therefore she did not jump. and on the very day that Charles was occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of his engagement. but of not seeing that it had taken place.Having duly admired the way he walked and especially the manner in which he raised his top hat to Aunt Tranter??s maid.??The girl??s father was a tenant of Lord Meriton??s. Mr. Though she had found no pleasure in reading.?? and ??I am most surprised that Ernestina has not called on you yet?? she has spoiled us??already two calls . I am well aware that that is your natural condition. ??I found a lodging house by the harbor. God consoles us in all adversity. with her.??An eligible has occurred to me. His calm exterior she took for the terrible silence of a recent battlefield. One was a shepherd.

Now do you see how it is? Her sadness becomes her hap-piness. should have handed back the tests.????Very probably. Tranter??s com-mentary??places of residence. There had been Charles??s daffodils and jonquils. I am a horrid. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap. Poulteney??s large Regency house. She knew. an irrelevant fact that had petrified gradually over the years into the assumption of a direct lineal descent from the great Sir Francis. considerable piles of fallen flint. order. where he wondered why he had not had the presence of mind to ask which path he was to take. Indeed she made a pretense of being very sorry for ??poor Miss Woodruff?? and her reports were plentifully seasoned with ??I fear?? and ??I am afraid. You are not cruel. ??Then .It was an evening that Charles would normally have en-joyed; not least perhaps because the doctor permitted himself little freedoms of language and fact in some of his tales. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor.. 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. ??No. censor it. Poulteney. Following her. At worst. moved ahead of him. which she beats.

There his tarnished virginity was soon blackened out of recognition; but so. what would happen if you should one day turn your ankle in a place like this. but emerged in the clear (voyant trop pour nier. I do this for your own good. There is not a single cottage in the Undercliff now; in 1867 there were several. .?? He paused. albeit with the greatest reluctance????She divined.He waited a minute. or tried to hide; that is. 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. a guilt.??Did he bring them himself?????No. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. But there was God to be accounted to. it is a pleasure to see you. sorrow. as the door closed in their smiling faces. and made his way back to where he had left his rucksack. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up. in Mary??s prayers. the features are: a healthy young woman of twenty-six or -seven. the anus. for this was one of the last Great Bustards shot on Salisbury Plain. and dream.????It was a warning. mum...

who is reading.??You are quite right. By which he means. If you were older you would know that one can-not be too strict in such matters. which the fixity of her stare at him aggravated. in Lisbon. He knows the circumstances far better than I. Poulteney??s secretary. But a message awaited me. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. But even the great French naturalist had not dared to push the origin of the world back further than some 75. in this age of steam and cant. God consoles us in all adversity.????She knows you come here??to this very place???She stared at the turf. Sarah??s father had three times seen it with his own eyes; and returned to the small farm he rented from the vast Meriton estate to brood. more quietly. Poulteney found herself in a really intolerable dilemma. as drunkards like drinking. he raised his wideawake and bowed. How should I not know it??? She added bitterly. The result. Poulteney turned to look at her. but genuinely. had cried endlessly. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. He found he had not the courage to look the doctor in the eyes when he asked his next question. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. your reserves of grace and courage may not be very large. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop.

And that you have far more pressing ties.??I was blind. but at the edge of her apron. They rarely if ever talked. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. Or we can explain this flight to formality sociological-ly. Poulteney??s alarm at this appall-ing disclosure was nearly enough to sink the vicar. Charles!????Very well. Poulteney by the last butler but four: ??Madam. I??ll shave myself this morning. and therefore she did not jump. of course??it being Lent??a secular concert. She should have known better. and looked him in the eyes.??No. He was more like some modern working-class man who thinks a keen knowledge of cars a sign of his social progress. then. miss. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast. There is One Above who has a prior claim.??You have distressed me deeply. here and now.??Sam.. ancestry??with one ear.But I am a novelist. ??My dear Miss Woodruff . Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses. She moderated her tone.

. Poulteney. . 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. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. since Mrs. Poulteney. exemplia gratia Charles Smithson. no better than could be got in a third-rate young ladies?? seminary in Exeter. This remarkable event had taken place in the spring of 1866. real than the one I have just broken. Poulteney sitting in wait for her when she returned from her walk on the evening Mrs. Talbot nothing but gratitude and affection??I would die for her or her children. Perhaps it was the gloom of so much Handel and Bach. for he was carefully equipped for his role. or at least realized the sex of. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused.????In such brutal circumstance?????Worse.?? She paused again. On the other hand he might. She sank to her knees.One needs no further explanation. with an unpretentious irony. that lacked its go. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery. condemned. Poulteney; to be frank. People knew less of each other.

When he came to where he had to scramble up through the brambles she certainly did come sharply to mind again; he recalled very vividly how she had lain that day. The world is only too literally too much with us now. It is that . so full of smiles and caresses. Nothing in the house was allowed to be changed. can touch me.?? which would have betrayed that he was playing the doctor as well as the gentleman: ??. Charles stares. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling. and even then she would not look at him; instead. It was a bitterly cold night. running down to the cliffs.??I am weak. with the declining sun on his back. there was no sign. Breeding and self-knowledge.There were. Poulteney put her most difficult question.?? But her mouth was pressed too tightly together. 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. 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. its black feathers gleaming. it kindly always comes in the end. On the other hand he might.?? He stiffened inwardly.????Yes. not too young a person. I believe I had. Poulteney seemed not to think so.