Strictly Literature: Tennyson, Trollope and C Brontë

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SPEAKER_00 2:13

So that was a lovely long procession of little children going past me. Yeah, that sound of children, it's no matter where you are in the country, that way they chatter and it's so great. I mean, what are each individual? You know, what what is each child talking about? They're probably talking about the football or his Lego or her swimming style or whatever. They're just chattering away. And I've just seen a juvenile um blue chit, very, very fluffy chested, really sweet, and that's cheered me up. It was singing its well, it was complaining it wanted some food. And I'm about to take you home, and then I think we're gonna have some literature today over a lovely pot of tea. What do you think? Uh a new reign opens by uh Mystery MP. I'll I'll find out at some stage who the MP is. I I did tell you before if you remember. So a new reign opens and it's the reign of Queen Victoria. Our English system of government by party makes the history of Parliament seem like that of a succession of great political duels. Two men stand constantly confronted during a series of years, one of whom is at the head of the government, while the other is at the head of the opposition. They change places with each victory. The conqueror goes into office, the conquered into opposition. It has often happened that the two leading opponents are men of intellectual and oratorical powers so fairly balanced that their followers may well dispute among themselves as to the superiority of their respective chiefs, and that the public in general may become divided into two schools, not merely political but even critical according to their partiality for one or the other. For many years Lord John Russell and Sir Sir Robert Peel stood thus opposed. Peel had by far the more original mind, and Lord John Russell never obtained so great an influence over the House of Commons as that which his rival long enjoyed. Lord John Russell was a born reformer, he had sat at the feet of Fox, he was cradled in the principles of liberalism, he held faithfully to his creed, he was one of the boldest and keenest champions, he had great advantages over Peel in the mere fact that he had begun his education in a more enlightened school, but he wanted passion quite as much as Peel did, and remained still farther than Peel below the level of the genuine orator. After the chiefs of ministry and of opposition, the most conspicuous figure in the House of Commons was the colossal form of O'Connell, the great Irish agitator, of whom we shall hear a good deal more. Among the foremost orators of the house at that time was O'Connell's impassioned lieutenant, Richard Laylor Sheel, a reign which saw in its earliest years the application of the electric current to the task of transmitting messages, the first successful attempts to make use of steam for the business of transatlantic navigation, the general development of the railway system all over these countries, and the introduction of the Penny Post must be considered to have obtained for itself, had it secured no other memorials, an abiding place in history. The history of the past forty or fifty years is almost absolutely distinct from that of any preceding period. In all that part of our social life which is affected by industrial and mechanical appliances, we see a complete revolution. A man of the present day suddenly thrust back fifty years in life, would find himself almost as awkwardly unsuited to the ways of that time as if he were sent back to the age when the Romans occupied Britain. He would find himself harassed at every step he took. He could hardly do anything as he does it today. Sir Robert Peel travelled from Rome to London to assume office as Prime Minister, exactly as Constantine travelled from York to Rome to become emperor. Each traveller had all that sails and horses could do for him and no more. A few years later Peel might have reached London from Rome in some forty eight hours. It's so interesting, isn't it? And I'm not saying that he's not right, the author of this, but I all I would say is that I don't you feel that every generation thinks that the last forty or fifty years, i.e., you know, that's probably the time that they lived is the most transformational age there's there's ever been. I mean I think we think it about it, don't we? And I and maybe we rightly think it, who knows? But didn't they think it too in the nineteen sixties? Didn't they think it too in the nineteen nineties? Up to this time the rates of postage were very high and varied both as to distance and as to the weight and even the size or the shape of a letter. The average postage on every chargeable letter throughout the United Kingdom was six pence farthing. A letter from Sir London to Brighton cost eight pence, to Aberdeen one shilling and three pence halfpenny, to Belfast one shilling and four pence. Not only was this all, for if the letter were written on more than one sheet of paper, it came under the operation of a higher scale of charge. Members of Parliament and members of the government had the privilege of franking letters. The franking privilege consisted in the right of the privileged person to send his own or any other person's letters through the post free of charge by merely writing his name on the outside. This meant in plain words that the letters of the class who could best afford to pay for them went free of charge and that those who could least afford to pay had to pay double the expense double the expense, that is to say, of carrying their own letters and the letters of the privileged and exempt. Mr Rowland Hill is the man to whom this country, and indeed all civilization, owes the adoption of the cheap and uniform system. His plan had been adopted has been adopted by every state which professes to have a postal system at all. Mr Hill belonged to a remarkable family, then talks about his family, but then I will go to the story itself, and it's someone called Miss Martineau told the story as follows Coleridge, when a young man was walking through the Lake District when he one day saw the postman deliver a letter to a woman at a cottage door. The woman turned it over and examined it, and then returned it, saying she could not pay the postage, which was a shilling. Hearing that the letter was from her brother, Coleridge paid the postage in spite of the manifest unwillingness of the woman. As soon as the postman was out of sight, she showed Coleridge how his money had been wasted as far as she was concerned. The sheet was blank. There was an agreement between her brother and herself that as long as that all went well with him, he should send a blank sheet in this way once a quarter, and she thus had tidings of him without the expense of postage. Most persons would have remembered this instance as a cu incident, as a curious story to tell, but there was one mind which wakened up at once to a sense of the significance of the fact. It struck Mr Rowland Hill that there must be something wrong in a system which drove a brother and sister to cheating in order to gratify their desire to hear of one another's welfare. Mr Hill gradually worked out for himself a comprehensive scheme of reform. He put it before the world early in eighteen thirty seven. The root of Mr Hill's system lay in the fact made evident by him beyond dispute, that the actual cost of the conveyance of letters through the post was very trifling, and was but little increased by the distance over which they had to be carried. His proposal was therefore that the rates of postage should be diminished to a minimum, that, at the same time the speed of conveyance should be increased, and that there should be much greater frequency of dispatch. He recommended the uniform charge of one penny the half ounce, without reference to the distance within the limits of the United Kingdom, which the letter had to be carried. The post office authorities were at first uncompromising in their opposition to the scheme, isn't that interesting? They were convinced that the government took up the scheme with some spor convinced that it must involve an unbearable loss of revenue, but the government took up the scheme with some spirit and liberality. Petitions from all the commercial communities were pouring in to support the plan and to ask that at least it should have a fair trial. The government at length determined in eighteen thirty nine to bring in a bill which would provide for the almost immediate introduction of Mr Hill's scheme, and for the abolition of the franking system, except in the case of official letters actually sent on business directly belonging to her Majesty's service. The bill declared as an introductory step that the charge for postage should be at the rate of four pence for each letter under half an ounce in weight, irrespective of distance within the limits of the United Kingdom. This, however, was to be the only a beginning, for on the tenth of january eighteen forty, the postage was fixed at the uniform rate of one penny per letter, of not more than half an ounce in weight. Some idea of the effect it has produced upon the postal correspondence of the country may be gathered from the fact that in eighteen thirty nine, the last year of the heavy postage, the number of letters delivered in Great Britain and Ireland was eighty two millions, which included some five millions, I said millions with an S on the end, and a half of Franc letters returning nothing to the revenue of the country, whereas in eighteen seventy five more than a thousand millions of letters were delivered in the United Kingdom. The population during that same time had not nearly doubled itself. That's the end of that chapter. Did you find that interesting? I know it's quite nerdy. I like ner d I'm trying to stop the recording and puppy's licking my hands. Are you licking my hands? A day taste of strawberries, I've just been eating strawberries. I'm watching the cricket today. England are playing in their second test against New Zealand. We won the first test, and that was at Lord's. And this is the second test, and again I've bought a ticket, which I I was gonna go and watch the test today and looking I was looking forward to it, but no, I get I gave it to my son. But actually you know that, don't you? Because yeah his interview yesterday. And we're seventy one for two and archer's bowling, and I've got it on mute so I can watch it. We'll have it in the background whilst I get this recording done, and then I've got to take dogs out and then ironing ironing ironing. Barchester Towers chapter twenty Mr Arabin The Reverend Francis Arabin, fellow of Lazarus, late Professor of Poetry at Oxford and present victor vicar of St. Ewald in the Diocese of Barchester, must now be introduced personally to the reader, and as he will fill a conspicuous place in the volume, it is desirable that he should be made to stand before the reader's eye by the aid of such portraiture as the author is able to produce. It is to be regretted that no mental method of now what's this word daguerreotype daguerreotype or photography has yet to be discovered, by which the characters of men can be reduced to writing and put in grammatical language with an unerring precision of truthful description. How often does the novelist feel I and the historian also, and the biographer, that he has conceived within his mind and accurate and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless when he flies to pen and ink to perpetuate the portrait, his words forsake, elude, disappoint, and play the juice with him. And I think the juice in that context means the devil, I think. Till at the end of a dozen pages the man described has no more resemblance to the man conceived than the signboard at the corner of the street has to the Duke of Cambridge. And yet such mechanical descriptive skills would hardly give more satisfaction to the reader than the skill of the photographer does to the anxious mother desirous to possess an absolute duplicate of her beloved child. The likeness is indeed true, but it is a dull, dead, unfeeling, inauspicious likeness. The face is indeed there, and those looking at it will know at once whose image it is, but the owner of that face will not be proud of the resemblance. There is no royal road to learning, no shortcut to the acquirement of any valuable art. Let photographers and daguerotypers do what they will, and improve as they may with further skill on that which skill has already done. They will never achieve a portrait of the human face divine. Let biographers, novelists, and the rest of us groan as we may under the burdens which we so often feel too heavy for our shoulders. We must either bear them up like men or own ourselves too weak for the work we have undertaken. There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily labor, omnia, vinkit improbus. Such would be the chosen motto of every labourer, and it may be that labour, if adequately enduring, may suffice at last to produce even some not untrue resemblance of the Reverend Francis Arabin. Of his doings in the world and of the sort of fame which he has achieved, enough has already been said. It has also been said that he is forty years of age and still unmarried. He was the younger son of a country gentleman of small fortune in the north of England. At an early age he went to Winchester, and was intended by his father for new college, but though studious as a boy, he was not studious within the prescribed limits, and at the age of eighteen he left school with a character for talent, but without a scholarship. All that he had obtained over and above the advantage of his character was a gold medal for English verse, and hence was derived a strong presumption on the part of his friends that he was destined to add another name to the imperishable list of English poets. From Winchester he went to Oxford and was entered as a commoner at Baliol. Here his special career very soon commenced. He utterly eschewed the society of fast men, gave no wine parties, kept no horses, rode no boats, joined no rows, and was the pride of his college tutor. Such at least was his career till he had taken his little go, and then he commenced a course of action which, though not less creditable, to himself as a man, was hardly so much to the taste of the tutor. He became a member of a vigorous debating society, and rendered himself remarkable there for humorous energy, though always in earnest, yet his earnestness was always droll. To be true in his ideas, unanswerable in his syllogisms, and just in his aspirations was not enough for him. He had failed, failed in his own opinion, as well as that of others when they came to know him, if he could not reduce the arguments of his opponents to an absurdity, and conquer both by wit and reason. That sounds very much like Churchill, doesn't it? To say that his object was ever to raise a laugh would be most untrue. He hated such common and unnecessary evidence of satisfaction on the part of his hearers. A joke that required to be laughed at was with him not worth uttering. He could appreciate by a keener sense than that of his ears the success of his wit, and would see in the eyes of his auditory whether or no he was understood and appreciated. He had been a religious lad before he left school, that is, he had addicted himself to a party in religion, and having done so had received that benefit which most men do who become partisans in such cause. We are too apt to look at schism in our church as an unmitigated evil. Moderate schism, if there may be such a thing, at any rate calls attention to the subject, draws in supporters who would otherwise have been inattentive to the matter, and teaches men to think upon religion. How great an amount of good of this description has followed that movement in the Church of England which commenced with the publication of Froud's Remains. As a boy, young Arabin took up the cudgels on the side of the Tractarians, and at Oxford he sat for a while at the feet of the great Newman. To this cause he lent all his faculties. For it was concocted, for it he concocted verses, for it he made speeches, for it he scintillated the brightest sparks of his great wit. For it he ate and drank and dressed, and had his being. In due process of time he took his degree and wrote himself BA, but he did not do so with any remarkable amount of academic eclat. He had occupied himself too much with high church matters, and the polemics, politics, and outward demonstrations usually concurrent with high churchmanship to devote himself with sufficient vigour to the acquisition of a double first. He was not a double first, nor even a first class man, but he revenged himself on the university by putting firsts and double firsts out of fashion for the year and laughing. laughing down a species of pedantry which, at the age of twenty three, leaves no room in a man's mind for graver subjects than conic sections or Greek accents. Greek accents, however, and conic sections were esteemed necessaries at Baliol, and there were no admittance there, for Mr A there was no admittance there for Mr Arabin within the list of its fellows. Lazarus, however, the richest and most comfortable abode of Oxford Dons, opened its bosom to the young champion of a church militant. Mr Arabin was ordained and McKite became a fellow soon after, taking his degree, and shortly after that was chosen professor of poetry. And now came the moment of his great danger. After many mental struggles and an agony of doubt which may well be surmised, the great prophet of the Tractarians confessed himself a Roman Catholic. Mr Newman left the Church of England, and with him carried many a waverer. He did not carry off Mr Arabin, but the escape which that gentleman had was a very narrow one. He left Oxford for a while that he might meditate in complete peace on the step which appeared to him to be all but unavoidable, and shut himself up in a little village on the seashore on one of the remotest counties, that he might learn by communing with his own soul whether or no he could well with a safe conscience remain within the pale of his mother church. Things would have gone badly with him there had he been left entirely to himself. Everything was against him all his worldly interests required him to remain a Protestant, and he looked on his worldly interests as a legion of foes, to get the better of whom was a point of extremist honour. In his then state of ecstatic agony such a conquest would have cost him little he could easily have thrown away all his livelihood, but it cost him much to get over the idea that by choosing the Church of England he should be open in his own mind to the charge that he had been led to such a choice by unworthy motives. Then his heart was against him he loved with a strong and eager love the man who had hitherto been his guide and yearned to follow his footsteps. His tastes were against him. The ceremonies and pomps of the Church of Rome, their august feasts and solemn fasts invited his imagination and pleased his eye. His flesh was against him how great an aid would it to be poor, a poor, weak, wavering man to be constrained to high moral duties, self denial, obedience and chastity by laws which were certain in their enactments, and not to be broken without loud, palpable, unmistakable sin. Then his faith was against him, he required to believe so much, panted so eagerly to give signs of his belief, deemed it so inefficient to wash himself simply in the waters of Jordan, that some great deed such as that of forsaking everything for a true church had for him allurements almost past withstanding. Mr Arabin was at this time a very young man, and when he left Oxford for his far retreat was much too confident in his powers of fence and too apt to look down on the ordinary sense of ordinary people, to expect aid in the battle that he had to fight from any chance inhabitants of the spot which he had selected, but Providence was good to him. And there in that desolate place on the storm beat shore of that distant sea, he met one who gradually calmed his mind, quieted his imagination, and taught him something of a Christian's duty. When Mr Arabin left Oxford he was inclined to look upon the rural clergymen of most English parishes almost with contempt. It was his ambition, should he remain within the fold of their church, to do somewhat towards redeeming and rectifying their inferiority and to assist in infusing energy and faith into the hearts of Christian ministers, who were as he thought, too often satisfied to go through life without much show of either, and yet it was from such a one that Mr Arabin, in his extremist need, received that aid which he so much required. It was from the poor curate of a small cornish parish that he first learnt to know that the highest laws for the governance of a Christian's duty must act from within and not from without, that no man can become a servable serviceable servant solely by obedience to written edicts, and that the safety which he cares about to seek within the gates of Rome was no other than the selfish freedom from personal danger which the bad soldier attempts to gain who counterfeits illness on the eve of battle. Mr Arabin returned to Oxford a humbler but a better and a happier man, and from that time forth he put his shoulder to the wheel as a clergyman of the church for which he had been educated. The intercourse of those among whom he familiarly lived kept his staunch kept him staunch to the principles of that system, of the church to which he had always belonged. Since his severance from Mr Newman no one had so strong an influence over him as the head of his college. During the time of his expected apostasy Dr Gwynne had not felt much dispreciated in favour of the young fellow. Though a high churchman himself within moderate limits, doctor Gwynne felt no sympathy with men who could not satisfy their faiths within than thirty nine articles. He regarded the enthusiasm of such as Newman as a state of mind more nearly allied to madness than to religion and when he saw it evinced by very young men, was inclined to attribute a good deal of it to vanity. Dr Wintwinne himself, though a religious man, was also a thoroughly practical man of the world, and he regarded with no favourable eye the tenets of anyone who looked on the two things as incompatible. When he found that Mr Arabin was a half Roman, he began to regret all that he had done towards bestowing a fellowship on so unworthy a recipient, and when again he learned that Mr Arabin would probably complete his journey to Rome, he regarded with some satisfaction the fact that in such case the fellowship would again be vacant. When, however, Mr Arabin returned and professed himself a confirmed Protestant, the master of Lazarus again opened his arms to him and gradually he became the pet of the college. For some little time he was saturnine, silent and unwilling to take any prominent part in university broils, but gradually his mind recovered or rather made its tone, and he became known as a man always ready at a moment's notice to take up the cudgels in opposition to anything that savoured of an evangelical bearing. He was great in sermons, great on platforms, great at after dinner conversations, and always pleasant as well as great. He took delight in elections, served on committees, opposed tooth and nail all projects of university reform, and talked jovily over his glass of port on the ruin to be anticipated by the church and of the sacrilege daily committed by the Whigs. The ordeal through which he had gone in resisting the blandishments of the Lady of Rome had certainly done much towards the strengthening of his character. Now I've just taken the dogs out and I'm watching the cricket and I think we're one four nine for four now. We're playing well but New Zealand are hanging in there and I think I've got to stop there because the chapter on Mr Arabin is a little bit dense. It it gets more interesting because he soon arrives at Barchester and then we we uh there's a bit on how he's received and all that. So that's the bit we want to hear about but let me stop there and let's turn to you know what? Charlotte Bronte Villette Chapter twenty six A Burial From this date my life did not want variety I went out a good deal with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the grade of my acquaintance that worthy directress had never from the first treated me otherwise than with respect, and when she found that I was liable to frequent invitations from a chateau and a great hotel respect improved into distinction. Not that she was foolsome about it. Madame, in all things worldly, was in nothing weak there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of self interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain, without then laying herself open to my contempt as a time server and a toady, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected with her establishment should frequent such associates as must cultivate and elevate rather than those who might deteriorate and depress. She never praised either me or my friends, only once when she was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and the gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable and I came up and asked leave of absence for the evening. She delivered herself in this gracious sort We Bonami Jevu don la permission de que de grezonet admirable romples de zelle et de discretion Vuzaven Le Tousamuse Sotred Controcho de Cones Jonsent Ces Digne Lurabo She closed her lips and resumed gazette. The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that about this time the triply enclosed packet of five letters temporarily disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first sensation on making the discovery but in a moment I took heart of grace Patience I whispered to myself let me say nothing but wait peaceably they will come back again. And they did come back they had only been on a short visit to Madame's chamber. Having passed their examination they came back duly and truly I found them all right the next day. I wonder what she thought of my correspondence what estimate did she form of doctor John Breton's epistolary powers? In what light did the often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound and sometimes original opinions set without pretension in an easily flowing spirited style appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous vein which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few kind words scattered here and there, not thickly as the diamonds were scattered in the valley of Sinbad, but sparely as those gems lie in unfabled beds Oh Madame Beck, how seemed these things to you I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour. One day after she had borrowed them in speaking of soave a little woman one ought to use suave terms, I caught her examining me with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons when the pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's recreation. She and I remained in the first class alone when I met her eye her thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips, said she, Celcuse de Bian remarkable donglaise how madame she gave a little laugh, repeating the word how in English Je nasor how mesenfin les anglais en deside a on amite on amour entu Mesomo il nepa boison du Sauve, she added, getting up and trotting away like the compact little pony she was then I hope, murmured I to myself that you will graciously let alone my letters for the future Alas something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters such as she had read come to me. I had seen the last of them, that goodly river on whose banks I had sojourned, on whose waves a few reviving drops had trickled to my lips, was bending to another course. It was leaving my little hut and field forlorn and sand dry, pouring its wealth of waters far away the change was right, just, natural, not a word could be said, but I loved my rhine, my nile, I had almost worshipped my Ganges, and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish like a false mirage. Though stoical I was not quite a stoic drops streamed fast on my hand, on my desk, I wept one sultry shower, heavy and brief but soon I said to myself The hope I am bemoaning suffered and made me suffer much. It did not die till it was full time, following an agony so lingering death ought to be welcome welcome I endeavoured to make it indeed long pain had made patience a habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face and composed its limbs with great calm the letter Oh my goodness sorry I just suddenly had a vision of my mum and her being dead and having to leave the room and knowing oh that her body was going to be taken away to be incinerated and having to let go of her fingers all cold and oh sorry. The letters however must be put away out of sight people who have undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away mementos. It is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment by sharp revival of regret. One vacant holiday afternoon the Thursday, going to my treasure with intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived and this time with a strong impulse of displeasure that it had again been tampered with the packet was there indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been untied and retied, and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been visited. This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as ever furnished a human head, that she should know the contents of my casket was not pleasant but might be born. Little Jesuit inquisitess as she was, she could see things in a true light and understand them in an unperverted sense, but the idea that she had ventured to communicate information thus gained to others, that she had perhaps amused herself with a companion over documents, in my eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly yet that such was the case I now saw reason to fear I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, Monsieur Paul Emmanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her she was much in the habit of consulting him and of discussing with him matters she broached to no one else. This very morning class that gentleman had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from Vashti, the actress I had not at the moment comprehended that blue yet lurid flash out of his angry eye, but I read its meaning now. He, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair point of view, not to judge me with tolerance and candor I had always found him severe and suspicious. The thought that these letters, mere friendly letters as they were, had fallen once and might fall again into his hands, jarred my very soul. What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house was it possible to find security or secrecy where could a key be a safeguard or a padlock a barrier in the Crenier? No, I did not like the Crenier Besides most of the boxes and drawers there were mouldering and did not lock. Rats too gnawed their way through the decayed wood, and mice made nests amongst the litter of their contents. My dear letters, most dear still, though Ichabod was written on their covers, might be consumed by vermin, certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp No, the grenier would not do but where then? While pondering this question, I sat in the dormitory window seat. It was a fine frosty afternoon, the winter sun already setting gleamed pale on the tops of the garden shrubs. In the alley defondu, one great old pear tree, the nun's pear tree, stood up a tall, dryered skeleton, grey, gaunt and stripped, a thought struck me, one of those queer, fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I put on my bonnet, cloak and furs, and went out into the city. Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoar and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct, in melancholy moods, I wandered on from street to street, till having crossed a half deserted place or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's shop, an antique an ancient place full of ancient things. What I wanted was a metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which might be stoppered and sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps I found and purchased the latter article. I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk, bound them with twine, and having put them in the bottle got the old Jew broker to stopper, seal and make it airtight. While obeying my directions he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his frost white eyelashes. I thought that there was some evil I believe he thought there was some evil deed on hand. In all this I had a dreary something, not pleasure, but a sad, lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood controlling me, was similar to the impulse and the mood which had induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the pensionat just as just at dark and in time for dinner. Sorry I keep stuttering over my words. At seven o'clock the moon rose at half past seven when the pupils and teachers were at study and Madame Beck was with her mother and children in the Salamanger, when the half boarders were all gone home and Rosine had left the vestibule and all was still, I shawled myself and taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first class door, into the Bersaux and then into the and thence into the alley defondu. Methelosa, the Pearl He stood at the farther end of the walk near my seat. He rose up dim and grey above the lower shrubs round him. Now Methalousa, though so very old, was of sound timber still, only there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow near his root. I knew that there was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick round, and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only going to hide a treasure, I meant also to bury a grief, that grief over which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding sheet, must be interred. Well, I cleared away the ivy and found the hole. It was large enough to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool shed at the bottom of the garden lay the relics of building materials left by masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched thence a slate and some water, put the slate on the hollow, secured it with cement, covered the whole with black mould, and finally replaced the ivy. This done I rested, leaning against the tree, lingering like any other mourner besides a newly sodded grave. The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist, which changed the moonlight into a luminous gaze, haze. In this air or this mist there was some quality, electrical, perhaps, which acted in a strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in England, on a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping around heaven, when belated in lonely fields I had paused to watch that mustering of an army with banners, that quivering of serried lances, that swift ascent of messengers from below the North Star to the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt not happy, far otherwise, but strong with reinforced strength. If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct was to conduct it single handed. I pondered now how to break up my winter quarters, to leave an encampment where food and forage failed, perhaps to effect this change, another pitched battle must be fought with fortune. If so I had a mind to the encounter, too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain, but what road was open? What plan available? On this question I was still pausing, when the moon so dim hitherto, seemed to shine out somewhat brighter. A ray even gleamed white before me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly to make out the cause of this well defined contrast appearing a little suddenly in the obscure alley, whiter and blacker it grew on my eye. It took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood there about three yards from a tall, sable robed, snowy veiled woman. Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still, I spoke. Who are you? And why do you come to me? She stood mute. She had no face, no features. All below her brow was masked with a white cloth, but she had eyes and they viewed me. I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate, and desperation will often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced one step. I stretched out my hand for I meant to touch her. She seemed to recede. I drew nearer. Her recession, still silent, became swift. A mass of shrubs, full leaved evergreens, laurel, and dense yew intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said If you have any errand to me, come back and deliver it. Nothing spoke or reappeared. This time there was no doctor John to whom to have recourse. There was no one to whom I dared whisper the words I have again seen the nun. Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Cressi. In the old Braton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used to notice that if I withdrew to my room she would speedily come trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her little peremptory accent, Come down, why do you sit here by yourself? You must come into the parlour. In the same spirit she urged me now. Leave the roofette, she said, and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than Madame Beck gives you. Mr Holme himself offered me a handsome sum, thrice my present salary if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach, I could give lessons, but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts and starved. I have to say I disagree, I'd loved I would have taken the job, I think I would have loved that sorry to interrupt. I was no bright lady's shadow, not Mr Bassampier's. Overcast enough it was my nature often to be of a subdued habit I was, but the dimness and depression must both be voluntary, such as kept me docile at my desk, in the midst of my now well accustomed pupils in Madame Beck's first class, or alone at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden. My qualifications were not convertible, not adaptable. They would not be made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating, understood each other well. I was not her companion, not her children's governess. She left me free, she tied me to nothing, not to herself, not even to her interests. Once when she had for a fortnight been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return, all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something in her absence should have gone wrong, finding that matters had proceeded much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring neglect, she made each of the teachers a present in acknowledgement of steadiness. To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night and told me she had no present for me. I must make fidelity advantageous to the Saint Pierre, she said, and if I attempt to make it advantageous to you, there will arise misunderstanding between us, perhaps separation. One thing, however, I can do to please you, leave you alone with your liberty secure. She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules, gratification in devoting double time in taking double pains with the pupils she committed to my charge. As to Mary de Bassonpierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her. Monsieur de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture. Blind to this possibility, unconscious as any child to the signs, the likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he might not approve. Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate. Difficult to say, he was much taken up with scientific interests, keen, intent, and somewhat apugnant in what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of life. From all I can gather he seemed to regard his daughterling as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that others might look on her in a different light. He would not speak of what should be done when Polly was a woman, when she should be grown up, and Polly, standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron grey locks, and at other times she would pout and toss her curls, but she never said Papa, I am grown up. She had different moods for different people. With her father she was still a child or childlike, affectionate, merry and playful. With me she was serious and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Breton she was docile and reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy. At moments she tried to be cold, on occasions she endeavoured to shun him. His step made her start, his entrance hushed her. When he spoke her answers failed of fluency. When he took leave she remained self vexed and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her. My little Polly, he once said, you live too retired a life. If you grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted for society. You really make quite a stranger of doctor Breton. How is this? Don't you remember that as a little girl you used to be rather partial to him? Rather, papa echoed she, with her slightly dry yet gentle and simply simple tone. And you don't like him now, what has he done? Nothing yes, I like him a little, but we are grown strange to each other. Then rub it off, Polly, rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk away when he is here, and have no fear of him. He does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa? Oh to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent lady? Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my way, and that I have no unfriendly intention. Your way, you little chatterbox so far from being your way, it is only your whim. Well, I'll improve, papa. And very pretty was the grace with which the next day she tried to keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr. John on several topics. The attention called into her guest's face a pleasurable glow. He met her with caution, and replied to her in his softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in the air, which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath. Thank you so much for joining me today for a literary episode, and I'm sorry for my stutterings, and I know that if I were really well if I really wanted to, I would make sure that I went back and got it all smooth and sharp, but I think that would I I think it's more disturbing to do that because I think if you re-record things then surely you're never gonna to do it with the same tone of voice and so I just think it's it's more it's it's better, I think, anyway, just to just to try and go go with the flow of it. I hope I hope you agree and that's okay. And I hope you're well. I I there's a real silence from you, and I wonder if you I have hardly had any messages recently, so do feel free to contact me. I know I keep saying it, but I'd love to hear from you. And one of the things I might do next time is run through a list of cities that you're that you all live in. In fact, I actually I'm tempted to do it now, but I've got so much to do. I'm going to end today with Tennyson, a s sonnet by Tennyson If I Were Loved Thank you again for joining me in a very good Wednesday night. If I were loved as I desire to be, what is there in the great sphere of the earth and range of evil between death and birth that I should fear if I were loved by thee? All the inner, all the outer world of pain, clear love would pierce and cleave if thou wert mine, as I have heard that somewhere in the main, fresh water springs come up through bitter brine, 'twoy not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee to wait for death, mute, careless of all ills, apart upon a mountain, though the surge of some new deluge from a thousand hills flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge, below us as far on as the eye could see.