Helen wore no hat, and the dusky, smouldering gold of her hair burned low over her forehead. Her eyelids10, smooth with the unwrinkled firmness of flesh of twenty-two years, drooped11 low over her book, but between the lids there showed a thin line of matchless violet. There were but a few pages more to read, and her underlip, full and sensitive in outline, quivered from time to time with the emotion that so filled her, and her breath came quickly through her thin nostrils12. As she read on, her half-smoked cigarette dropped from between the fingers of her left hand and sent up little whorls of blue smoke as it lay unheeded on the grass, and her eyes grew suddenly dim. Then the last page was turned, and with a sudden sobbing13 intake14 of her breath she closed the book.
She sat quite still for a moment, the book lying in her lap, looking with misty15, unseeing eyes over the great stretch of open land and sky in front of her. In the immediate16 foreground lay the croquet-lawn, with disjected mallets and aimless balls scattered18 about, while slowly across it, like some silent tide, the shadows grew and lengthened19. Beyond, at the top of a grassy20 bank still in sunlight, ran a terraced walk bordered deeply with tall herbacious plants; farther out of sight behind the border were a few fields, water meadows of the chalk-stream, and beyond again and above rose the splendid and austere21 line of Hampshire downs, tanned with this month of English summer{7} to a russet mellowness22. A sky of untarnished blue held a slip of pale and crescent moon, and the splendour and the unutterable sadness of evening, of a day gone, brooded a sweet, regretful presence over everything.
Suddenly the girl sat up.
“Martin!” she cried, “Martin!”
“Well?” asked a very lazy voice from a hammock between two trees at the end of the lawn.
“Come here. Oh, do come. I can’t shout.”
The hammock-ropes wheezed23 and creaked, and a tall, loose-limbed boy, looking not much more than twenty, strolled over to where she sat.
“I’ve won my bet,” he said; “so pay up, Helen. I said the end would make you cry. You are crying, you know. I count that crying.”
“I know. I’ll pay all right,” she said. “I almost wish it had been more.”
“So do I,” said Martin. “That’s easily arranged then.”
Helen paid no attention to this.
“Oh, Martin, those two coming together like that at the end. And that beast, that beast——“
“Stephen?”
“Yes, among others. But Tom particularly. They none of them knew, they none of them guessed what she, what Maggie was. Oh, oh! How horribly sad, and how horribly beautiful—like, like this evening.”
Martin took out his cigarette-case.
“For you?” he asked.
“No; you gave me one which I haven’t—I don’t know where it is. Oh, it’s smoking itself on the grass. Oh, my goodness! Anyhow, Maggie lived; that is{8} the point. Dreadful people, dreadful circumstances, all that one would think would make living impossible, surrounded her. But she managed it. And what am I to do, please?”
Martin laughed.
“I wonder if you know how like you that is,” he said.
“What is?”
“Your instant application of Maggie to yourself. Really it is very odd that you and I are twins. If only I had half your eye for the practical way of getting through things, I should pass my examinations. And if you had only half my eye for the theoretical beauty of leaving distasteful things alone——“
Helen sat up with a quick, decisive movement, letting the book drop on the grass.
“Martin, if we didn’t happen to have been brother and sister we should have fallen desperately24 in love with each other and been accepted at once. At least I should have proposed to you, and you would certainly have said ‘Yes.’ And I should have made home happy for you on twopence farthing a year, and always had your slippers25 warm when you came home in the evening, and the kettle boiling on the hob. And you could have spent the rest of our joint26 incomes on grand pianos and music paper.”
“You are too overwhelmingly generous, Helen,” said he. “I don’t think I can accept it from you.”
Helen got up.
“Oh, how I hate, how I hate——“ she began.
“That’s no use,” said Martin.
“Use? Of course not. Oh, it’s all very well for you. You are away half the year at Cambridge, and{9} have no end of a time. But I am here. I and the Room!”
“What’s the ‘Room’?” asked her brother.
Helen pushed back her hair again and sat down on the lawn by Martin.
“The Room is the latest of my many trials,” she said. “It is quite new. Outside it is corrugated27 iron, inside it is distemper, covered by a dreadful sort of moisture, which is Essence of Village Children. On the walls there are maps of the Holy Land and Hampshire. I know the road from Dan even unto Beersheba as well as I know the road from here to Winchester. There is a library there of soiled books of travel and missionary28 enterprise, and a complete set of “Good Words.” There is also a wellspring there, only I can’t find it and stop it up, which continually pours up an odour of stuffiness29. It is the sort of place where nothing nice could ever happen. And there on Tuesday evening I teach arithmetic to dreadful little boys. On Wednesday I read to mothers,—I am getting to hate the word,—who knit shapeless articles while I read. I read them abominable30 little stories about the respective powers of faith, hope, and love, and the virtue31 of being good, and the vice32 of being wicked. I don’t suppose any of them could be wicked if they tried.”
Helen paused a moment.
“Oh, Martin, it is heavenly to have you at home, and be able to say all these things straight out just once. It makes me feel so much better. May I go on?”
“Yes; take your time,” said Martin.
“Well, where had I got to? Oh, yes, Wednesday.{10} On Thursday Mr. Wilkins,—he’s the new curate, whom you haven’t seen yet: spectacles, bicycle, and proposes to me every now and then,—Mr. Wilkins on Thursday has something for men only; I don’t know what, but I’m sure it’s dreadful. Friday—girls’ class. And on Saturday a choir33 practice. A—Choir—Practice. Now, you have been to church here——“
“Rather,” said Martin.
“And heard the singing. It is to produce that marvellous result that we practice. Even I know how awful it is. There was a man called the Reverend P. Henley. I sing the alto of his horrid34 chant. Would you like to hear me sing? And on Sunday I have the Sunday-school. They use heaps of pomatum, you know. And they learn by heart their duty towards their neighbours, and when I am not looking pull each other’s hair. Then it is Monday again, and we begin all over again. Oh, think of it! You see, I am not by nature a ministering angel, and I have to spend my whole life in ministering to these people. They have no intelligence, nothing that I can lay hold of or join hands with. It is not their fault, and it is not my fault that I am not a ministering angel. But what is the use of battering35 at their intelligences when they haven’t got any? Also they are personally distasteful to me.”
Martin laughed at this tirade36, and thoughtfully executed a gnat37 that had designed to dine off his brown fingers.
“Why, I thought you were such a success,” he said. “Father held you up to me as an example and a shining light.”
“Of course I’m a success,” cried Helen. “I’ve got{11} to do this sort of thing; and if one has to do something, it is simple imbecility not to do it well. You’re an imbecile, you know, darling.”
“Oh, I know that,” said he. “At least I’ve been told it often enough.”
Helen was silent a moment, looking very affectionately at her brother’s long, slim figure as he lay stretched on the grass by her side. His straw hat was tilted38 over his eyes, and of his face there appeared only his chin and his mouth a little open, shewing a very white line of teeth. And the current of her thoughts hardly changed when she went on to speak of him, not herself.
“Martin, how is it you can’t get through your examinations?” she asked. “You do work, don’t you? And though I called you an imbecile just now, you have more perception than most people. Or do you spend all your day at the piano?”
“He has forbidden me to have a piano in my rooms next term,” said Martin. “So I shall have to waste more time in walking to the pianos of other people and interrupting their work as well as my own.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” said Helen.
Martin only grunted39 in reply, and his sister went on:
“But it is foolish of you,” she said. “Indeed it is foolish. No doubt what you have got to do, Greek, Latin, is all very dull to you and seems very useless, but it is surely better to look at it as one of those things that has got to be done. As you say, and as father says, and as I say, I am a success at all these dreadful functions in the Room. Why? Merely because it has got to be done, and therefore, although it{12} is all intensely stupid and bores me so much that I could cry, I attend sufficiently41 to do it respectably. Now, can’t you adopt the same attitude towards classics? Besides, you know what father feels about it.”
“I am perfectly42 aware of what father feels about it,” said Martin, dryly.
“Has he been at you again?”
“Yes, I think you might call it that without conveying a false impression. He apparently43 wants to give me to understand that it is some moral crime not to be able to do Greek iambics. Well, I am a criminal then. I can’t. Also that it is impossible to be educated without. Then I began arguing,—which is always stupid,—and said I supposed it depended on what one meant by education. And he said he imagined he was the best judge of that. So there we were.”
“And what do you mean by education?” asked Helen.
“Why, of course, the appreciation44 of beauty,” said Martin, quickly. “‘O world as God has made it,’—you know the lines.”
“Ah, say them,” she said.
Martin sat up, tilting45 back his hat.
“‘O world as God has made it, all is beauty,
And knowing this is love, and love is duty,
What further may be sought for or declared?’”
“Yes, that isn’t a bad creed46,” said Helen.
“I hope not, for it is mine. And it seems to me that you may look for beauty and find it in almost everything. Where you look for it should depend entirely47 on your tastes. Father finds it in the works of Demosthenes, but I in the works of Schumann and a few other people he has never heard of.”{13}
“But aren’t Greek plays beautiful?” asked Helen.
“Oh, I daresay. But, being what I am, music concerns me more. Don’t let’s argue. It is so enfeebling. When I begin arguing I always feel like Mr. Tulliver, when he said, ‘It’s puzzling work, is talking.’”
Helen laughed.
“Well, you and I ought to be pretty well puzzled by now,” she said. “I’m sure we’ve talked enough. I’ll play you one-half game of croquet before dinner. Oh, by the way, father is dining with Uncle Rupert. You and Aunt Clara and I will be alone. You will have to read prayers.”
“And sing the hymn48 an octave below,” remarked Martin.
The Honorable and Reverend Sidney Challoner—or, as he preferred to be addressed, the Reverend-Honorable—was a man of method and economy who hated wasting anything from time down to the brown paper in which parcels arrived, and at this moment he was employing the half-hour before it was necessary to go to dress for dinner at Chartries, his brother’s place, which stood pleasantly among woods about a mile distant, in finishing his sermon for Trinity Sunday. His study, where he worked, was singularly like himself, and seemed as integral a part of him as the snail49-shell is of the snail. There was nothing, for instance, in the least drowsy50 or dusty about the room. Everything was in its place, the place of each thing being in every case strictly51 determined52 by the use to which it was to be put, and the frequency with which it was to be used. A scrupulously53 orderly and energetic severity in fact, was the keynote of the room.
Something of the same characteristic also ran{14} through the sermon at which he was working, which was an exposition, historically introduced, of the less encouraging and comfortable verses of the Athanasian creed, which his congregation would have recited during the service. He was master of a style of English, in itself neat, correct, and lucid54, which served him, not as in the sermons of so many preachers, to clothe and cover his lack of ideas, but to reveal the abundance of them and convey without possibility or misunderstanding, but rather with the precision of hitting a nail on the head, what he thought on any particular subject. There survived in him, indeed, a full if not a double portion of the Puritan spirit on religious matters; and though his mind, his soul, his actions were all dictated56 and impelled57 by a fervent58 and whole-hearted Christianity, yet his eloquence59 was wont60 to dwell, and did so here, on the doctrine61 of eternal damnation with a very curious gusto. It appeared to him that the truth of it was abundantly warranted in the Bible, and that it was therefore his duty as minister of the Word to bring this as well as other doctrines62 home to his flock. And something of the same grim aspect of duty extended to affairs of ordinary life; and where censure63 was clearly deserved, any offence was visited by him with a force that his approbation64 sometimes lacked if there was nothing to blame. The Puritan, too, survived in a certain mistrust he had of mirth and gaiety: without being in the least sour, he was so intensely serious that at any given moment it appeared to him that there was probably something better to do than to laugh, and a moment’s thought easily discovered what it was. Of work he was insatiable: if he was unsparing to others, at any rate he{15} never spared himself, and the day of rest was to all in his house the most iron day of all. All pleasure, except that which was to him the greatest pleasure in life, active religious work and religious exercises, was put away; but since all exercises, even religious ones, are fatiguing65, it was a weary household that went up to bed on Sunday evening.
Now, though to have a very strong vocation66 towards a particular work, to be convinced that such work is the highest and best in the world, and to do it is a disposition67 of affairs that makes for happiness, it is probable that if you had taken Mr. Challoner unawares and asked him if he was happy, he would have hesitated before he answered. For, in spite of his firm and convinced attitude, both towards life in general and to those most intimate with him, there rose deep down in the man a great fountain of tenderness, a great longing68 for love. Herein lay the secret tragedy of his life: he longed with the same intensity69 with which he served God for the ordinary human affections and relationships, but through the armour70-crust of his nature—an armour, be it noted71, of welded and hammered work and duty—his human hand could not break its way to clasp the hands of others. That still was the tragedy of his life with regard to his two children, just as it had been even more bitterly so with regard to his wife, a half-Italian by birth, whom he had adored with that serious fervour which suffused72 his nature. It was just his spiritual anxiety and care for her which had, by a refined irony73 of fate, come like an impassible barrier between them. To her he seemed always to be checking the innocent and sunny impulses of joy that were as vitally hers as fervour{16} was his. He put it that there was always something better to be done with the precious passing hours than to sing or laugh or gather flowers or embroider74 some dainty fragment of personal embellishment. Or, rather, let her take these innocent tastes and raise them, elevate them, dedicate them. Let her sing by all means, but let her gift of music be devoted to the help of the parish choir; let her gather flowers to send to the sick; let her embroider an altar-cloth. But poor Mrs. Challoner, a girl still in years, whose motor-power in life was joy, found that to fit her pleasures to useful ends meant that they ceased to be pleasures. There are many natures, not necessarily shallow or selfish, like that; and when her husband told her that the flowers with which she loved to fill her rooms were beautiful to her so that thereby75 her thoughts might be led heavenwards, she was minded to throw them away.
From the first, indeed, the marriage had been strangely ill-assorted. It may have been made in heaven, but in that case it would probably have been far better if it had not come down to earth. Sidney Challoner had had his reason and his senses taken captive for a time by this delicious piece of dew and sunlight; on her side his imperiousness, his eager over-mastering desire for her, his extreme good looks, and perhaps also the fact that he stood next in succession to the earldom of Flintshire, his elder brother, the present holder76 of that delightful77 position, being unmarried, led her to accept his devotion. This disillusionment had soon come to each. The exquisite child-like beauty of his wife, behind which he had conjectured78 the child-like spirit, he found to be a mere40 mask;{17} while to her the fiery79, dominating lover turned to a hard, unbending master. A year after their marriage twins were born, and from that time the girl-mother had drooped and dwindled80. The fogs of this northern climate—fogs, too, more intimate and distressing82 of mind and spirit—and the absence of mirth and laughter chilled her to the bone, and a year afterwards she was dead.
Her death left him inconsolable, in so far that he determined never to marry again; but when his sister Clara came to keep house for him and look after the early education of Martin and Helen, it cannot be denied that the widower83 found himself more comfortable than he had been. For Clara was one of those not uncommon84 English spinsters who had a perfect passion for doing the things she ought to do and leaving completely undone85 the things she ought not. As the feminine element in the house of a parish priest it was her clear mission to be aunt, if not mother, to the flock, and classes and instructions, so hated of her niece’s soul, grew up under her care like seed sown in April. She had practically no pleasures, and her only relaxation86 was Patience, which she played regularly from the time dinner was finished till family prayers at a quarter to ten. Precisely87 at twenty minutes to ten, if the cards were going awkwardly, she began to cheat, and continued, if necessary, to cheat until the parlourmaid began to set out a row of chairs for the servants. Thus she was able by the time they filed in to sweep the cards triumphantly88 up together in their due and proper order and be humbly89 thankful for the temptations into which she had not fallen that day.
Mr. Challoner this evening found that the peroration{18} with which he concluded his sermon took rather less time than he had anticipated, and there was still some ten minutes after he had arranged the sheets in order and placed them under a paper-weight to be read through in the morning before he need go to dress. As his custom was, he closed his eyes for a moment after finishing his work, in silent prayer that it might bear good fruit, and then, hearing the clash of croquet-balls from the garden, he strolled out to see his children. He had had a very unpleasant talk with Martin that morning on the subject of his late failure at Cambridge, and though the occasion seemed to him then and seemed still to have demanded stern speaking, he had wondered several times since whether he had not been too severe. Yet how else except by very earnest remonstrance90 could he awaken91 in the lad his sense of responsibility with regard to the spending of the days that would never come again. All his life he had faithfully and strenuously92 striven to implant94 in his boy the duty of making the best and the most of his youth. Prayer and work were the two great guides of life. These must be constant and concentrated; and how gravely and mortally would he himself be to blame if through any want of inculcation on his part his son grew up tepid95 in the one and slack in the other. Still, and here his essential tenderness groped about, Martin was young yet and more tender perhaps in mind even than in years, and the clash of croquet-balls and a sudden burst of boyish laughter from the lawn made him long to enter into his children’s pleasures. So without putting on his hat, for the evening breeze was not too cool to the head, he went out down the box-hedge and round the corner on to the croquet-lawn.{19}
Martin, standing55 with his back to him, had not heard his approach, and was examining the position of his two balls, which were quite close together, but with an uncompromising wire between them. On the bank where they had been sitting lay “The Mill on the Floss,” and Helen was standing close by her brother, in the proud, calm consciousness of having wired him with complete success.
“Well, of all the devilish things to do, Helen,” said Martin at length, and struck wildly in the hopes of an impossible cannon96 off the wire.
“My turn, I think,” she said.
She walked across to the ball in play and saw her father.
“Come and play, father,” she said.
“No, dear; thanks. I must go and dress in a few minutes. Martin, old boy, come here a moment.”
Again his duty, the need for remonstrance, strove with his tenderness.
“Martin,” he said, gently, “that’s rather strong language to use to your sister, isn’t it? Don’t get in that sort of habit, dear fellow; never use words idly like that.”
At this all the genial97 instinctive98 pleasure faded out of Martin’s face and his eyes fell.
“Yes, father, I’m sorry,” he said, in a perfectly dull, conventional voice.
“I know it was only thoughtlessness, old boy,” said his father; “but try to think. There then. How’s the game going?—is Helen playing with the frightful99 precision we are getting accustomed to? Look there, she’s hit your ball from right across the lawn. Don’t be too merciless, Helen, with your poor brother.”{20}
Helen smiled and made some laughing reply to her father. Then her eye caught sight of the book lying on the bank, her smile faded, and as she went after the ball she had hit she wondered what could be done. She guessed, though she had not heard the words, that Martin had already been rebuked100 for what he had said. She knew there had been one dreadful hour already that morning, and another was certain if her father saw the book. Mean time he was strolling down the lawn right in its direction, where it was lying radiant and blatant101 in its crimson102 cover on the vivid green of the grass. Martin also had seen what would happen, and as she passed him whispered to her:
“He’ll see it. O Lord!” with a drearily103 comic expression.
Mr. Challoner strolled on, came to where the book lay, and picked it up with the amiable104 intention of putting it on the chair to save its cover from the damp. As he did this, he read the title on the back. Then there was a dreadful pause.
“Is this yours, Martin?” he asked.
“Yes, father.”
Mr. Challoner said nothing more, but went on his way, taking the book with him. At the corner of the box-hedge, however, he turned.
“If you are up when I come back, Martin,” he said, “will you come into my study? But don’t wait up for me if I am late.”
He turned his back again to walk on, and Martin thought he had gone. But next moment he paused again, and raised his voice slightly.
“You should answer when I speak to you,” he said.{21}
“I thought you had gone, sir,” said Martin, with a little tremor105 of irritation106 in his tone.
This time he passed out of sight, and Martin threw down his croquet-mallet17.
“Rather bad luck,” he said. “I’m not popular to-day. Helen, what a fool you were to leave it on the grass.”
“Oh, I am so sorry Martin,” she said. “What can I do? Would it do any good if I said I had been reading it?”
“No, not the slightest,” said he. “There would be enough to go round.”
“I will if you like,” said she. “You see, the worst of it is that only three days ago, the day before you came home, he said that he would not have a book of hers in the house. But you couldn’t be expected to know that.”
“No, but I did,” said Martin, “because you told me.”
Helen threw down her mallet too.
“Oh, it’s dreary,” she said.
Lord Flintshire, Mr. Challoner’s elder brother, with whom he was dining to-night, was a figure of some distinction. He had been at one time a political factor of great weight in the country, a weight due chiefly to the force of inertia107, since he never professed108 the least personal interest in politics and could not possibly be considered as having any ambition or aim to gratify in spending so much time and labour in the interests of the Conservative party. His wealth and position, in fact, were like a large, heavy parcel strongly tied up and dropped into the Tory scale. But at the age of fifty-five he and they considered that he had done{22} enough, resigned the Cabinet appointment he held, and for the last seven years had devoted himself with far more zest109 than he had ever brought into the political arena110 to the aristocratic pursuit of doing nothing whatever. To the successful discharge of this he brought all his acuteness and perception and practised it with such charming success as to raise it to the level of a fine art. He was never in a hurry and never either felt or exhibited the slightest sign of irritation or annoyance111 at anything which the world or the powers of heaven or hell chose to do. He had great appreciation of the fine arts and even a higher appreciation of the inimitable comedy of life, so that to live in a beautiful house, which he did, and fill it with congenial people constituted for him a far more engrossing112 occupation than politics had ever been. For his brother Sidney he had a very real affection, but also a certain sympathetic pity. He could understand, as he had once told him, what it must be to “feel like that.”
“You live perpetually in a bracing113 climate, my dear fellow,” he said, “and find it positively114 necessary to do dumb-bells all day. Yes, I will certainly give you a hundred pounds for your village Room. I shall be charmed to do so, but I don’t want to hear about it. And, pray, let me know if you want more.”
There was only a small party that night, and when the women went upstairs and the men seceded115 to the smoking-room, Lord Flintshire detained his brother for a moment as he was leaving.
“Will you not stop a quarter of an hour, my dear fellow,” he said, “and have a chat? I have not seen you since Easter. How are you all? How are Helen{23} and Martin? That girl grows handsomer every time I see her. And Martin?”
“Martin has just achieved one of his annual failures at Cambridge,” said his father. “Yes, I will wait a quarter of an hour, Rupert. I should like to talk to you about him. I am a good deal troubled.”
“Wild oats of some kind?” asked the other. “If so, I should, if I were you, look very steadily116 in another direction. As one grows older, my dear Sidney, one is apt to look on wild oats as something much more poisonous than they really are—nightshade—deadly nightshade, for instance. But they are only wild oats really.”
Sidney sat down.
“Ah, you don’t expect me to share that view,” he said. “Sin is sin whether you are twenty or sixty. But Martin, as far as I know, has not been——“
“Playing about,” said Lord Flintshire, with the amiable desire to find a periphrasis. But it did not please his brother.
“I can’t discuss things with you in that spirit,” he said. “However, that point is really alien. I have no reason to suspect Martin of such things. But what I deplore117 is his general slackness. It is to the mind like low physical health to the body: it predisposes to all diseases. I had to speak to him severely118 about his failure at Cambridge this morning,—too severely perhaps,—and this evening again he has distressed119 me very much.”
“What has he done?” asked Rupert.
“Well, you will think it very insignificant120, no doubt, but to me it appears most significant of his general state. He was playing croquet with Helen and I heard{24} him say to her, ‘Well, of all the devilish things to do.’ Now, when we were boys, Rupert, we didn’t say that sort of thing at all, and we couldn’t have said it to our sisters.”
Lord Flintshire felt some kindly121 amusement at this. Sidney was such a dear fellow.
“But it is some years since we were boys,” said he at length, “and rightly or wrongly the world has begun to take things more—how shall I say it—to ride life on the snaffle instead of the curb122. What else has Martin done?”
“He has brought into the house ‘The Mill on the Floss.’”
Rupert’s admirable courtesy enabled him not to smile.
“Have you read the book?” he asked.
“No; but I will not have a book of that author in the house. I said so only the other day. Martin must have known it. For all I know, he has given it to his sister to read.”
“I hope so,” said Lord Flintshire, quietly. “Because it is a very beautiful book. Of course his disobedience to your wishes is a different point, and to my mind a more serious one. But am I to understand that you are consulting me as to what general line you should take with Martin, what policy you should pursue?”
“Yes, I am very much puzzled, and I cannot seem to get any guidance about it. It does no good, I am afraid, to pull the poor lad up first here and then there thirty times a day. And it appears to do no good either to talk to him on the general principles of earnestness and industry. But I do so want him to{25} grasp them. All the faults I see in him spring from slackness. He will not think. He did not think what the word he used to his sister means. He never thinks how just a little carelessness about his work repeated and again repeated must lead to a habit of idleness. I am most deeply thankful that our father was strict with us, Rupert. He made industry a habit with one.”
Rupert laughed.
“A habit from which I have succeeded in freeing myself,” he said. “But Martin is not slack about everything. He is not slack about music.”
“Ah, that is a distraction123 which is responsible for a great deal of his idleness,” said his father. “But I have forbidden him to have a piano in his room next term.”
Lord Flintshire did not pursue this. There was a plot already on foot here, and his brother got up, and with his quick, neat touch put straight a couple of books lying on the table.
“There is this, too,” he said. “Not only does my continual correction of him seem to do no real good, but it certainly does harm to my relations with the boy. He will get to look on me as a continual menace to his pleasure, as a continual school-master. And I want to be kind to the lad, to make him happy, to make a friend of him. But when that which I consider my duty leads me to correct him, and again and again to correct him, I am so afraid that his estimate of the love I bear him will be lowered, eclipsed. And nothing in the world, Rupert, could be sadder to me than that my children should not think of me as their friend.”
His strong, tender voice quivered for a moment as{26} he spoke124 these words, and he paused a moment to regain125 the complete control of himself.
“But nothing, not even that,” he said, “must or shall stand in my way or count for anything in regard to the responsibility which God has laid upon me to make my children worthy126 children of Him. I should be the weakest and most culpable127 of fathers if for the sake of any human affection, however sweet, I sacrificed one jot128 or tittle of that.”
Rupert was silent a moment. Though he had always felt great respect and esteem129 and strong affection for his brother, he had never found him, emotionally speaking, particularly interesting. He had the greatest admiration130 for his industrious131, strenuous93 life, his undoubted mental gifts, his swift and keen intelligence, the absolute undeviating probity132 of his character; but his admiration had been somewhat of the sort a mechanician may feel for his bright engine with its rhythmical133 accuracy, its precise strokes, its clean efficiency and strength. But suddenly the engine had developed a human and a pathetic side: its throbs134 were not steam-driven only, but they were the throbs of a human heart. True, he had known the wild adoration135 of Sidney for his girl-wife, but that with its speedy disillusionment had seemed to him the one concession136 Sidney had made to the flesh. It was human, but it was not high humanity, otherwise he would have made a better recovery, so to speak. His passion had been awakened137 then, but not the man, and his religion and his passion together had mixed no better than oil and water. The experience had not humanized him.
Lord Flintshire’s strong appreciation of the inimitable comedy of life did not help him here, as he sat{27} silent for a moment before replying. Elements of comedy were not wanting, his brother’s heart-felt distress81 at the fact of Martin calling his sister devilish, for instance, was ludicrous enough, but these things combined to form nothing to laugh at; the result was tragedy, tragedy in no grand and great style, but a pitiful little tragedy of misunderstanding and estrangement138. And Rupert, knowing his brother and knowing Martin, saw no possibility of comedy entering with any unexpected “happy ending.” For Sidney was, so to speak, an irreconcileable: he admitted no sort or shadow of compromise; he would hold no parleying with the enemy, even if the enemy was entrenched139 in one of his own household. He and Martin, in fact, disagreed vitally and fundamentally; the lad was a good lad accidentally, essentially140 he was an artist to his finger-tips. Those were the influences which governed him. But to his father all the artists and all the artistic141 achievements of man were no more than a fringe on the visible garment of God.
“No one can really help you in this,” said Rupert at length, “except yourself and Martin. But I can suggest to you a certain point of view. Do, I beg you, allow for individualism in other people. You yourself, dear Sidney, have a great deal of it. But there is no reason to suppose that Martin has any less. And remember also that the younger generation is always ahead of the elder, and though we can, by using extreme care, influence them a little, yet the reins142 of government are in their hands, not ours. That is partly why I retired143 from politics. And as a practical suggestion I offer you this: I beg you to say nothing more about ‘The Mill on the Floss’ to Martin. It is{28} quite impossible that he should agree with you, simply because he is of the next generation to you. Indeed, if you do not take care, that which you are afraid of will certainly happen, even if it has not happened already. He will get to think of you as a man who is always finding fault, always correcting—a thing fatal to friendship.”
“Is it irremediable if it has already happened?” asked Sidney, with a rather pathetic humility144.
“Of course it is not, just because boys are so extraordinarily145 generous, so eager to like one. Martin is a delightful boy: he is upright, honest, clean. Be thankful for that, and let him develop on his own lines. He will do so, by the way, whether you like it or not; so it is just as well to like it. Besides, you must not interfere146 with other people’s individualities. I feel that rather strongly.”
Lord Flintshire got up and began walking softly up and down the room. In face he was very like his brother, but, though older, he looked younger, for there was a softness about his features extraordinarily youthful.
“As one gets old, my dear Sidney,” he said, “one stands in danger of getting old-fashioned. That seems to me to be a very terrible thing. One’s own convictions may become hard, fixed147 in outline, incapable148 of growth or adaptation, and one may become incapable of imagining that one can be wrong. You may draw your convictions from the highest source; you may be able to say quite honestly, ‘I believe with my whole heart that the will of God is so.’ But, as Oliver Cromwell once remarked, ‘It is just possible that one may be mistaken.’”{29}
He paused a moment.
“I seldom talk so much,” he said, “but I have not quite done even now. The younger generation, take them all round, ride life, as I said, on the snaffle. Now, if you choose, you may call that slackness, and as slackness condemn149 it. But all your condemnation150 of it will do no good. Martin will continue to be what you call slack; mean time you are in danger of becoming what he would call tiresome151. He will also, on occasion, continue to call his sister ‘devilish.’ Nor is there the slightest reason why he should not. If you or I had called our sisters devilish when we were boys, it would have been undesirable152. What you forget is that ‘devilish’ does not mean now what it meant thirty years ago, nor does Martin mean by it what you mean by it.”
Mr. Challoner got up too, his mouth drawn153 rather tight.
“I am much obliged to you for your advice, Rupert,” he said, “but I find I disagree with you in principle so absolutely and fundamentally that there is no use in my discussing with you. I too claim my individual liberty, a very large part of which is concerned with my sense of responsibility for my children.”
“My dear fellow, you make a great mistake,” said Lord Flintshire.
“I cannot alter my convictions.”
“And you will make a great mess of it,” said the other.
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1
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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juxtaposition
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| n.毗邻，并置，并列 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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anathema
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| n.诅咒；被诅咒的人(物)，十分讨厌的人(物) | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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13
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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14
intake
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| n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口 | |
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15
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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16
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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17
mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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18
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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19
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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21
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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22
mellowness
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| 成熟； 芳醇； 肥沃； 怡然 | |
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23
wheezed
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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25
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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26
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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27
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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28
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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29
stuffiness
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| n.不通风，闷热；不通气 | |
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30
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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31
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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32
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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33
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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34
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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35
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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36
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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37
gnat
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| v.对小事斤斤计较，琐事 | |
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38
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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39
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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40
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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41
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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42
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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43
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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44
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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45
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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46
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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47
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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48
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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49
snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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50
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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51
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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52
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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53
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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54
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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55
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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56
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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57
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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59
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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60
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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61
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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62
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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63
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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64
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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65
fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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66
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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67
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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68
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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69
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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70
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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71
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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72
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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74
embroider
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| v.刺绣于(布)上；给…添枝加叶，润饰 | |
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75
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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76
holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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77
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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78
conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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80
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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82
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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83
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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84
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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85
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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86
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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87
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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88
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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89
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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90
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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91
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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92
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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93
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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94
implant
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| vt.注入，植入，灌输 | |
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95
tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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96
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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97
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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98
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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99
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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100
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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102
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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103
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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104
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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105
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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106
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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107
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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108
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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109
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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110
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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111
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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112
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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113
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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114
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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115
seceded
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| v.脱离，退出( secede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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117
deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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118
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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119
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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120
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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122
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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123
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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124
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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125
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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culpable
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| adj.有罪的，该受谴责的 | |
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128
jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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129
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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130
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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131
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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132
probity
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| n.刚直；廉洁，正直 | |
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133
rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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134
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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135
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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137
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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138
estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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139
entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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140
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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141
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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143
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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148
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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149
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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150
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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151
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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152
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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