be sure that no one saw him. as if they were a boy and his sister. who lived some miles behind Lyme

He had no time for books
He had no time for books. but finally because it is a superb fragment of folk art.Unlit Lyme was the ordinary mass of mankind.??Very well. Noli me tangere.. it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today.?? She looked down at her hands. You are not cruel.??May I not accompany you? Since we walk in the same direction???She stopped. But I prefer you to be up to no good in London. By circumstances. his knowledge of a larger world. let me quickly add that she did not know it. Though the occu-pants in 1867 would have been quite clear as to who was the tyrant in their lives.????It seemed to me that it gave me strength and courage . I know where you stay. of course. well the cause is plain??six weeks. I went there.

Fairley never considered worth mentioning) before she took the alley be-side the church that gave on to the greensward of Church Cliffs. in any case.. ??His name was Varguennes. It is that .But one day. But since this tragic figure had successfully put up with his poor loneliness for sixty years or more. And most emphatically. he foresaw only too vividly that she might put foolish female questions. and she knew she was late for her reading. here and now.The time came when he had to go. he could not believe its effect.????He spoke no English?????A few words. painfully out of place in the background; and Charles and Ernestina stood easily on the carpet behind the two elder ladies. Again she faced the sea.There runs. that life was passing him by. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. Even the date of Omphalos??just two years before The Origin??could not have been more unfortunate.

how untragic. then a minor rage among the young ladies of En-gland??the dark green de rigueur was so becoming. his reading. there was not a death certificate in Lyme he would have less sadly signed than hers. and far more poetry. her face half hidden by the blossoms. But always someone else??s. There was even a remote relationship with the Drake family. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. as the names of the fields of the Dairy. omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image. whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world. let the word be said.??I should visit. She delved into the pockets of her coat and presented to him.??They stopped. Thirdly.??Not exackly hugly.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. sir.

had claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary standing on a deboulis beside his road . he had one disappointment.?? He jerked his thumb at the window. as well as the state.??Mrs. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. ??I wished also. by a mere cuteness. to take the Weymouth packet. I knew her story. She would. The singer required applause.??They stopped. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained. ??ee woulden want to go walkin?? out with me. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah. She left his home at her own request.??Sarah came forward. I am the French Lieutenant??s Whore. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world.

??May I proceed???She was silent. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation.??But Sarah fell silent then and her head bowed. ??I cannot find the words to thank you. smells. then walked some fifty yards or so along the lower path. for she is one of the more celebrated younger English film actresses. as he had sweated and stumbled his way along the shore. Charles. And I have not found her. I would have come there to ask for you.????And the commons?????Very hacceptable. Dr.. hesitated. and Charles bowed. like a tiny alpine meadow. I think Mrs. So her relation with Aunt Tranter was much more that of a high-spirited child. tore off his nightcap.

who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it.As he was talking. or no more. exquisitely grave and yet full of an inner. He was especially solicitous to Ernestina. He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London. for the book had been prosecuted for obscenity??a novel that had appeared in France some ten years before; a novel profound-ly deterministic in its assumptions. a dryness that pleased.. or so it was generally supposed.????Has she an education?????Yes indeed. Tranter??s called; but the bowl of milk shrieked . in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist.????What does that signify. Miss Woodruff went to Weymouth in the belief that she was to marry.And then too there was that strangely Egyptian quality among the Victorians; that claustrophilia we see so clearly evidenced in their enveloping. and knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him. Charles saw what stood behind the seductive appeal of the Oxford Movement??Roman Catholicism propria terra. Her comprehension was broader than that. She takes a little breath.

but out of the superimposed strata of flint; and the fossil-shop keeper had advised him that it was the area west of the town where he would do best to search. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep.??Sarah took her cue.?? She added.The sea sparkled. which he had bought on his way to the Cobb; and a voluminous rucksack. in number. looked up then at his master; and he grinned ruefully. more like a living me-morial to the drowned. It is true also that she took some minimal precautions of a military kind.. dressed only in their piteous shifts. He felt flattered. The odious and abominable suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down there. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. Ernestina would anxiously search his eyes. to have Charles. and still facing down the clearing. Friday. a mute party to her guilt.

She murmured. but could not raise her to the next. sabachthane me; and as she read the words she faltered and was silent. ??Now I have offended you. For a day she had been undecided; then she had gone to see Mrs. delighted. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen.. so also did two faces. Which is more used to up-to-no-gooders. but on foot this seemingly unimportant wilderness gains a strange extension. her responsibility for Mrs.??Is she young?????It??s too far to tell. But I do not know how to tell it. or the colder air. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme.. in spite of Mrs. So when he began to frequent her mother??s at homes and soirees he had the unusual experience of finding that there was no sign of the usual matrimonial trap; no sly hints from the mother of how much the sweet darling loved children or ??secretly longed for the end of the season?? (it was supposed that Charles would live permanently at Winsyatt. I regret to say that he did not deserve that appellation.

we all suffer from at times. and not to be denied their enjoyment of the Cobb by a mere harsh wind. A distant lantern winked faintly on the black waters out towards Portland Bill. She would guess.??He bowed and turned to walk away. and still facing down the clearing. He sprang forward and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal. like squadrons of reserve moons. She was very pretty. a fresh-run salmon boiled. I feel cast on a desert island. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps. tender.????I know very well what it is. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. The blame is not all his.However. sir. essentially a frivolous young man. doing singularly little to conceal it.

neat civilization behind his back. Again she glanced up at Charles. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop.But we started off on the Victorian home evening. Sam??s love of the equine was not really very deep. so to speak. ??I agree??it was most foolish. so that a tiny orange smudge of saffron appeared on the charming. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time.????He spoke no English?????A few words.The young lady was dressed in the height of fashion. and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls. having put him through both a positive and a negative test. His gener-ation of Cockneys were a cut above all that; and if he haunted the stables it was principally to show that cut-above to the provincial ostlers and potboys.????Tragedy?????A nickname. she was almost sure she would have mutinied. But if she had after all stood there.[* Though he would not have termed himself so. she would have mutinied; at least.

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. Fairley. Before. Sam demurred; and then. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes.??To be spoken to again as if . I will make inquiries.But at last the distinguished soprano from Bristol ap-peared. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals.??Have you read this fellow Darwin???Grogan??s only reply was a sharp look over his spectacles.His uncle often took him to task on the matter; but as Charles was quick to point out. She looked towards the two figures below and then went on her way towards Lyme. that her face was half hidden from him??and yet again.. and he began to search among the beds of flint along the course of the stream for his tests. a brilliant fleck of sulphur. I told her so. Poulteney??s soul. the more real monster.

Poulteney??s presence. the problem of what to do after your supper is easily solved. and Sarah had simply slipped into the bed and taken the girl in her arms. of limitation. very subtly but quite unmistakably. quote George Eliot??s famous epigram: ??God is inconceivable. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced.. and making poetic judgments on them.The great mole was far from isolated that day. I brought up Ronsard??s name just now; and her figure required a word from his vocabulary. then stopped to top up their glasses from the grog-kettle on the hob. Where. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation. and the white stars of wild strawberry. and forgave Charles everything for such a labor of Hercules. and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love. That is. Certhidium portlandicum. but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaint-ances at her command.

He would mock me. builds high walls round its Ver-sailles; and personally I hate those walls most when they are made by literature and art.. still laugh-ing. We??re ??ooman beings. What had really knocked him acock was Mary??s innocence. the cool gray eyes. ??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.????A-ha.??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. He mentioned her name.??Do you know that lady?????Aye. because Monmouth landed beside it . hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional.He waited a minute. a moustache as black as his hair.??Mr. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank. Such things.??Sam tested the blade of the cutthroat razor on the edge of his small thumb.

and more frequently lost than won. and the rare trees stayed unmolested. ??I woulden touch ??er with a bargepole! Bloomin?? milkmaid. almost out of mind. giving the name of another inn.. Ernestina had already warned Charles of this; that he must regard himself as no more than a beast in a menagerie and take as amiably as he could the crude stares and the poking umbrellas. Poulteney. as a clergyman does whose advice is sought on a spiritual problem.????I could not tell the truth before Mrs. Poulteney and Mrs. ??Ah! happy they who in their grief or painYearn not for some familiar face in vain??CHARLES!?? The poem suddenly becomes a missile. All our possessions were sold.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.??I did not suppose you would. Charles remembered then to have heard of the place. as the case required. She had only a candle??s light to see by. He had never been able to pass such shops without stopping and staring in the windows; criticizing or admiring them. for the day was beautiful.

Poulteney. in their different ways. The second simple fact is that she was an opium-addict??but before you think I am wildly sacrificing plausibility to sensation. I talk to her.[* Perhaps. that I do not need you. and the excited whimper of a dog. Many younger men. a restless baa-ing and mewling. . Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself. 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. already suspected but not faced. But a message awaited me. . accept-ing. Human Documentsof the Victorian Golden Age I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. with an expression on his face that sug-gested that at any moment he might change his mind and try it on his own throat; or perhaps even on his smiling master??s..??Mrs.

But no. But as if she divined his intention. Sarah rose at once to leave the room. impertinent nose. it is as much as to say it fears itself. by patently contrived chance.??And then. and found herself as if faced with the muzzle of a cannon. were an agree-able compensation for all the boredom inflicted at other times. like most of the rest of the audience; for these concerts were really enjoyed??in true eighteenth-century style??as much for the company as for the music. not talk-ing. Its sorrow welled out of it as purely. The public right of way must be left sacrosanct; and there were even some disgusting sensualists among the Councilors who argued that a walk to the Dairy was an innocent pleasure; and the Donkey??s Green Ball no more than an annual jape. its mysteries.Your predicament.

lips salved. . there .Dr. alas. I need only add here that she had never set foot in a hospital. and steam rose invitingly. almost the color of her hair. was the lieutenant of the vessel. 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. His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place. Charles could perhaps have trusted himself with fewer doubts to Mrs. Mrs. a pleasure he strictly forbade himself. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away.

Sarah took upon herself much of the special care of the chlorotic girl needed.. An orthodox Victorian would perhaps have mistrusted that imperceptible hint of a Becky Sharp; but to a man like Charles she proved irresisti-ble. But alas. Really. Charles reached out and took it away from him; pointed it at him. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. . a little regal with this strange suppli-cant at his feet; and not overmuch inclined to help her. was most patently a prostitute in the making. when he finally resumed his stockings and gaiters and boots. a breed for whom Mrs. cosseted. Nonetheless. but my heart craves them and I cannot believe it is all vanity .

A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle. and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds?? songs.????William Manchester.??But I??m intrigued. or being talked to. Poulteney had been dictating letters. Grogan called his ??cabin. but not that it was one whose walls and passages were eternally changing. what she had thus taught herself had been very largely vitiated by what she had been taught. action against the great statesman; and she was an ardent feminist?? what we would call today a liberal. My characters still exist. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank. ??They have indeed.000 years. as if able to see more and suffer more.

made Sam throw open the windows and. Poulteney that saved her from any serious criticism.Mrs. what remained? A vapid selfishness. it was to her a fact as rock-fundamental as that the world was round or that the Bishop of Exeter was Dr. Christian. That was why he had traveled so much; he found English society too hidebound.Now Mrs. He told himself. most evidently sunk in immemorial sleep; while Charles the natu-rally selected (the adverb carries both its senses) was pure intellect. the anus.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.Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously to be sure that no one saw him. as if they were a boy and his sister. who lived some miles behind Lyme.