VICTORIAN LITERATURE

SELECTION OF TEXTS

BANJA LUKA, 2016. godina

Uredila: Dijana Tica

CONTENTS:

Emily Bront ..... 3

Wuthering Heights (fragments) .......................................................................................................... 4

William Makepeace Thackeray ... 9

Vanity Fair (fragments) .............................................................................................................10

Lord Alfred Tennyson 14

The Lady of Shalott ........................................................................................................................... 15
The Lotos Eaters ............................................................................................................................... 16
Ulysses .............................................................................................................................................. 18

Robert Browning .19

Porphyrias Lover. 19
My Last Duchess ....................................................................................................................... 20
Andrea del Sarto ............................................................................................................................... 20

Matthew Arnold .. 23
The Forsaken Merman . 24
Memorial Verses ... 25
Dover Beach . 26

Charles Dickens .. 27
Great Expectations (fragments) ....................................................................................................... 28

George Eliot 33
The Mill on the Floss (fragments) .................................................................................................... 33

Thomas Hardy 39
Tess of the dUrbervilles (fragments) .............................................................................................. 40

Oscar Wilde . 44
The Picture of Dorian Gray (fragments) .. 45
The Importance of Being Earnest (fragment) ................................................................................... 47

George Bernard Shaw 49

Candida (fragment) ...................................................................................................................50

Gerard Manley Hopkins 52

Gods Grandeur..53
Spring ....53
The Windhover53
Pied Beauty.53
As Kingfishers Catch Fire .53

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 Emily Bront (1818-1848)
Emily Jane Bront was born July 30, 1818, at Thornton in Yorkshire, the
fifth of six children of Patrick and Maria Bront (nee Branwell). Two
years after her birth, her father was appointed curate of Haworth, an
isolated village on the moors. Both of Emilys parents had literary
leanings; her mother published one essay, and her father wrote four
books and dabbled in poetry. In 1821, shortly after Emilys third
birthday, Maria died of cancer. Marias sister, Elizabeth, came to live as
a housekeeper and was responsible for training the girls in the household
arts. Although Emily did spend a few short times away from Haworth, it
was her primary residence and the rectory where she resided now serves
as a Bront Museum. Emilys only close friends were her brother
Branwell and her sisters Charlotte and Anne. In 1824, the four eldest
daughters were sent to Cowan Bridge School, a school for daughters of impoverished clergymen. The conditions were
harsh and an epidemic soon broke out, taking the lives of Maria and Elizabeth. Charlotte became very ill as well, and
she and Emily were sent home to Haworth. About this time, Branwell, the only boy in the family, received a box of
twelve wooden soldiers. The children began to write stories about them called the Young Men plays. In 1835,
Charlotte became a teacher at Roe Head school and Emily joined her as a student. Emily, however, could not stand
being away from her beloved moors, and became violently homesick. She returned home and her younger sister, Anne,
took her place.

Emily began writing poems at an early age and published twenty-one of them, together with poems by Anne and
Charlotte, in 1846. The slim volume was titled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Only two copies were sold, and
the failure led all three to begin work on novels: Emily on Wuthering Heights, Charlotte on Jane Eyre, and Anne on
Agnes Grey. At an even earlier age, she collaborated with Charlotte, Branwell, and Anne on the plays and tales that
developed into the Glass Town saga. By 1834, Emily and Anne were thoroughly engrossed in writing their own saga
involving two imaginary islands in the north and south Pacific, Gondal and Gaaldine. No early prose narratives survive,
but several poems by Emily and Anne refer to Gondal places and characters.

In 1848, Branwell became addicted to both drugs and alcohol and it soon became clear that he was dying. Emily had
always counted Branwell among her closest friends and was the only one of her siblings who allowed that friendship to
triumph over the urge to judge; she went as far as beating out the flames with her bare hands when he, in a drunken
stupor, wrapped himself in a blanket and lit it on fire. Despite all of her efforts, Branwell died in September 1848 at the
age of thirty. Emily caught a cold at his funeral and never left home again. She died of tuberculosis on December 19,
1848, also at the age of thirty, and never knew the great success of her only novel Wuthering Heights, which was
published almost exactly a year before her death on December 19, 1848. From the opinions of those who knew her well,
Emily emerges as a reserved, courageous woman with a commanding will and manner. In the biographical note to the
1850 edition of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bront attributes to her sister a secret power and fire that might have
informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero, while Monsignor Heger, who taught her in Brussels, was impressed
by her powerful reason and strong, imperious will.

The vein of violence, of stoicism, and of mysticism in Emilys personality have given rise to many legends but few
certainties. She is now established as much the most considerable poet of the three sisters, and one of the most original
poets of the century, remembered for her lyrics (e.g. The night is darkening round me), for her passionate invocations
from the world of Gondal (Remembrance, The Prisoner), and her apparently more personal visionary moments (No
coward soul is mine).

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WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1847) (fragments)

a) CHAPTER III

While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master
had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the
reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on,
she could not begin to be curious.

Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture
consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows.
Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very
conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it
formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got
in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered
with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters,
large and small Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine
Linton.

In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw
Heathcliff Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from
the dark, as vivid as specters the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I
discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted
calf-skin. I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open
the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the
inscription Catherine Earnshaw, her book, and a date some quarter of a century back. I shut it, and took up another
and another, till I had examined all. Catherines library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been
well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink commentary
at least the appearance of one covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached
sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra
page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my
friend Joseph, rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine,
and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

An awful Sunday, commenced the paragraph beneath. I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a
detestable substitute his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious H. and I are going to rebel we took our initiatory step
this evening.

All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in
the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire doing anything but reading
their Bibles, Ill answer for it Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-
books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would
shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three
hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, What, done already? On Sunday
evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into
corners.

You forget you have a master here, says the tyrant. Ill demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I
insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him
snap his fingers. Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husbands knee, and there
they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of.
We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together,
and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork,
boxes my ears, and croaks:

T maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not oered, und t sound o t gospel still i yer lugs, and ye darr
be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! theres good books eneugh if yell read em: sit ye down, and think o
yer sowls!

Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to
show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the

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scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then
there was a hubbub!

Maister Hindley! shouted our chaplain. Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathys riven th back off Th
Helmet o Salvation, un Heathcliffs pawsed his fit into t first part o T Brooad Way to Destruction! Its fair
flaysome that ye let em go on this gait. Ech! th owd man wad ha laced em properly but hes goan!

Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the
arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, owd Nick would fetch us as sure as we were
living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink
from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty
minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywomans cloak, and have a
scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe
his prophecy verified we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.

******

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so! she wrote. My head aches, till I cannot
keep it on the pillow; and still I cant give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and wont let him sit
with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the
house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears
he will reduce him to his right place

******

I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print. I saw a red
ornamented title Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the
Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough. And while I was, half-consciously, worrying my
brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the
effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I dont remember
another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.

I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set
out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my
companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrims staff: telling me that I could never
get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so
denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own
residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez
Branderham preach, from the text Seventy Times Seven; and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the
First of the Seventy-First, and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.

We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two
hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the
few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergymans stipend is only twenty
pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will
undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than
increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive
congregation; and he preached good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal
to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell.
He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on
every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.

Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked
myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have
done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the First of the Seventy-First. At that crisis, a sudden
inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no
Christian need pardon.

Sir, I exclaimed, sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four
hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to
depart Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and
ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which
knows him may know him no more!

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 Thou art the Man! cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. Seventy times seven times
didst thou gapingly contort thy visage seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul Lo, this is human
weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment
written. Such honour have all His saints!

With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrims staves, rushed round me in a body;
and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious
assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces.
Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every mans hand was against his neighbour;
and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit,
which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested
the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabezs part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my
lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the
disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.

This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of
the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so
much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook
was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. I must stop it, nevertheless! I
muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of
which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried
to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, Let me in let me in! Who are
you? I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. Catherine Linton, it replied, shiveringly (why did I think
of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton) Im come home: Id lost my way on the moor! As it
spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a childs face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless
to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran
down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, Let me in! and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me
with fear. How can I! I said at length. Let me go, if you want me to let you in! The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine
through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable
prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful
cry moaning on! Begone! I shouted. Ill never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years. It is twenty years,
mourned the voice: twenty years. Ive been a waif for twenty years! Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and
the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a
frenzy of fright. To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door;
somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat
shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to
himself. At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, Is any one here? I considered it best to
confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliffs accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet. With this
intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his
face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from
his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

It is only your guest, sir, I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice
further. I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. Im sorry I disturbed you.

Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the commenced my host, setting the candle on
a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. And who showed you up into this room? he continued,
crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. Who was it? Ive a good
mind to turn them out of the house this moment?

It was your servant Zillah, I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. I
should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the
place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I
assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!

What do you mean? asked Heathcliff, and what are you doing? Lie down and finish out the night, since you
are here; but, for heavens sake! dont repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your
throat cut!

If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me! I returned. Im not going
to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on
the mothers side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called she must have been a

6
changeling wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for
her mortal transgressions, Ive no doubt!

Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliffs with Catherines name in
the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration: but,
without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the
night in Here I stopped afresh I was about to say perusing those old volumes, then it would have revealed my
knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I went on in spelling over the
name scratched on that window-ledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or

What can you mean by talking in this way to me! thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. How how
dare you, under my roof? God! hes mad to speak so! And he struck his forehead with rage.

I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected
that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of Catherine Linton
before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination
under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost
concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an
excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily,
looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: Not three oclock yet! I could have taken oath it had
been six. Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!

Always at nine in winter, and rise at four, said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion
of his arms shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes. Mr. Lockwood, he added, you may go into my room: youll only
be in the way, coming down-stairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.

And for me, too, I replied. Ill walk in the yard till daylight, and then Ill be off; and you need not dread a
repetition of my intrusion. Im now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man
ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Delightful company! muttered Heathcliff. Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you
directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house Juno mounts sentinel there, and nay,
you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! Ill come in two minutes!

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was
witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He
got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.
Come in! come in! he sobbed. Cathy, do come. Oh, do once more! Oh! my hearts darling! hear me this time,
Catherine, at last! The spectre showed a spectres ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind
whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its
folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it
produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and
landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together, enabled me to rekindle my candle.
Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.

b) CHAPTER IX

Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams? she said suddenly, after some minutes reflection.

Yes, now and then. I answered.

And so do I. Ive dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: theyve
gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: Im going to
tell it but take care not to smile at any part of it I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home;
and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the
middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret,
as well as the other. Ive no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in
there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldnt have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so
he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because hes handsome, Nelly, but because hes more myself than I
am. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Lintons is as different as a moonbeam from lightning,

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or frost from fire I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Heathcliff has no notion of
these things. He has not, has he? He does not know what being in love is?

I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you, I returned; and if you are his choice, hell be the
most unfortunate creature that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all!
Have you considered how youll bear the separation, and how hell bear to be quite deserted in the world?

He quite deserted! We separated! she exclaimed, with an accent of indignation. Who is to separate us, pray?
Theyll meet the fate of Milo! Not as long as I live Ellen; for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth
might melt into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, thats not what I intend thats not what I
mean! I shouldnt be Mrs Linton were such a price demanded! Hell be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime.
Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he learns my true feelings towards him.
Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be
beggars? Whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brothers power.

With your husbands money, Miss Catherine? I asked. Youll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon:
and though Im hardly a judge, I think thats the worst motive youve given yet for being the wife of young Linton.

It is not, retorted she, it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgars sake, too,
to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot
express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you.
What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been
Heathcliffs miseries, and I have watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all
else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the
universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the
woods: time will change it My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible
delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! Hes always, always in my mind as my own being.

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 William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
William Makepeace Thackeray was born 18 July 1811, first and only child of
Richmond Thackeray and Anne Becher Thackeray. He was born in India, where his
father worked for the East India Company, and sent to school in England, as was the
fashion for colonial-born children, in 1817. His father had died in 1815, and shortly
after William left, she remarried to her first love, Captain Henry Carmichael-Smyth.
They joined William in England in 1820.
Like most English children, William was miserable at school. He was not good at
sports, though he was fairly popular in spite of that, and suffered through two poor
headmasters. He also had his nose broken during a boxing match with another student
named George Venables. While in school he developed two habits that were to stay
with him all his life: sketching and reading novels. He later attended Cambridge,
where he lost a poetry contest to one Alfred Tennyson, though several of Williams
satirical poems were published around this time. William also met Edward FitzGerald
who remained his best friend to the end of his life.

William never quite took a degree in anything. He started studying law, though he never actually got anywhere with it.
He supported himself by selling sketches and working at a bill discounting firm. He had fallen in with a bad crowd on
the Continent, and he had some rather large gambling debts to pay off. After a brief flirtation with running his own
newspaper, William was even more briefly an art student before falling in love with one Isabella Shawe. Since he
needed enough money to marry on, Williams mother and stepfather, mostly broke due to an economic collapse in India
(where they had left most of their money), scraped together all of the funds they could find and started a newspaper
called the Constitution. William was appointed the papers Paris correspondent at 450 per year. He had also had a little
book of satirical essays on the ballet published. After a few rocky patches, William and Isabella were married on 20
August 1836 and his first publication in volume form, Flore et Zephyr, appeared.

Their first child, Anne Isabella, was born in June of 1837. Her birth was rapidly followed by the collapse of the
Constitution. The sketch market had pretty much dried up, so William began writing as many articles as humanly
possible and sending them to any newspaper that would print them. He contributed to Frasers Magazine, the Morning
Chronicle, the New Monthly Magazine, The Times, and many other periodicals. This was a precarious sort of existence
which would continue for most of the rest of his life. He was fortunate enough to get two popular series going in two
different publications. His personal life, however, was not going so well. His second daughter died at less than a year
old, and though a third daughter, Harriet Marian, was born in 1840 and thrived, Isabella did not. She fell victim to some
sort of mental illness and after a few months was so suicidal and difficult to control that she was placed in a private
institution. She remained in one institution or another for the rest of her life and outlived her husband by thirty years.

Thackeray first came to the attention of the public with The Yellowish Papers, which appeared in Frasers Magazine in
1837-8, followed by Catherine (1839) and A Shabby Genteel Story (1840). His first full-length volume, The Paris
Sketch Book (1840), and The Great Hoggarty Diamond (1841) both appeared under his most familiar pseudonym,
Michael Angelo Titmarsh. In 1842-3 he wrote, as George Savage FitzBoodle, The FitzBoodle Papers and Mens
Wives, and FitzBoodle is also the editor of The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844). The Irish Sketch Book (1843) has a
preface signed, for the first time, with Thackerays own name.

Thackeray began his association with Punch in 1842, contributing caricatures, articles, and humorous sketches. The
Snobs of England (later republished as The Book of Snobs) appeared there in 1846-7, and Mr Punchs Prize Novelists,
parodies of the leading writers of the day, in 1847. Now Williams life got really busy. In 1847 his first major novel,
Vanity Fair, began to appear in monthly numbers, with illustrations by the author. Pendennis followed in 1848-50.
Over the next few years, he wrote The History of Henry Esmond (3 vols, 1852), The Newcombes, published in numbers
in 1853-5, and a series of Christmas Books which he illustrated himself; made two lecture tours of America (1851-3,
and 1855-6), carried on a protracted (but probably innocent) flirtation with one Jane Brookfield, wife of an old school
friend, and stood as an independent candidate in an Oxford by-election. The Virginians, set in America, appeared in
numbers in 1857-9.

9
VANITY FAIR (1847) (fragments)

a) CHAPTER I, Chiswick Mall

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of
Miss Pinkertons academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing
harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant,
who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite
Miss Pinkertons shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of
the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of
good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that ladys own
drawing-room.

It is Mrs. Sedleys coach, sister, said Miss Jemima. Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the
coachman has a new red waistcoat.

Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedleys departure, Miss Jemima? asked
Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the
correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister, replied Miss Jemima; we have made her a
bow-pot.

Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, tis more genteel.

Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley,
and the receipt for making it, in Amelias box.

And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedleys account. This is it, is it? Very good
ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I
have written to his lady.

In Miss Jemimas eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as
would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to
be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to
the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemimas opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughters loss,
it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkertons billet was to the following effect:

The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18

MADAM, After her six years residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of presenting
Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their
polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those
accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss
Sedley, whose industry and obedience have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful
sweetness of temper has charmed her aged and her youthful companions.

In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found
to have realized her friends fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful
and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended
as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and carriage, so requisite for every young
lady of fashion.

In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which
has been honoured by the presence of The Great Lexicographer, and the patronage of the admirable Mrs.
Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the
affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself,

10
 Madam, your most obliged humble servant, BARBARA PINKERTON

P.S. Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharps stay in Russell
Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail
themselves of her services as soon as possible.

This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedleys, in the fly-leaf of a
Johnsons Dictionary the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the
Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkertons school, at the
Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson. In fact, the Lexicographers name was always on the lips of this
majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.

Being commanded by her elder sister to get the Dictionary from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two
copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first,
Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second.

For whom is this, Miss Jemima? said Miss Pinkerton, with awful coldness.

For Becky Sharp, answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as
she turned her back on her sister. For Becky Sharp: shes going too.

MISS JEMIMA! exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. Are you in your senses? Replace the
Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future.

Well, sister, its only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky will be miserable if she dont get one.

Send Miss Sedley instantly to me, said Miss Pinkerton. And so venturing not to say another word, poor
Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.

Miss Sedleys papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled
pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high
honour of the Dixonary.

Although schoolmistresses letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it
sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of all the praises the stone cutter carves over
his bones; who is a good Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually does leave a disconsolate
family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully
worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a young lady of this
singular species; and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming qualities
which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and
herself.

For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider
beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of
her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery,
and the one-eyed tart-womans daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies in the
Mall. She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never
spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexters granddaughter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as
for Miss Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitts, on the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion
of tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with sal volatile. Miss Pinkertons attachment
was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima
had already whimpered several times at the idea of Amelias departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone
off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitts. Such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed
to parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate
and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her
again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and
her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history.

But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she
was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in

11
villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person.
As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather short than
otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her
lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-
humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over
a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so
stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so why, so much the
worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and
though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to
treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.

So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was
greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three days
before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen
presents to make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: Send my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the
Earl of Dexter, said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby). Never mind the postage, but write every day,
you dear darling, said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan
little Laura Martin (who was just in round-hand), took her friends hand and said, looking up in her face wistfully,
Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you Mamma. All which details, I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this book
at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at
this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the
words foolish, twaddling, etc., and adding to them his own remark of quite true. Well, he is a lofty man of genius,
and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been
arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cows-skin trunk with Miss
Sharps card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a
corresponding sneer the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the
admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused Amelia to
philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull,
pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in
her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the
drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss
Sedley was at liberty to depart.

Youll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky! said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody
took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox.

I suppose I must, said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having
knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said
in French, and with a perfect accent, Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux.

Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up
her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, Miss Sharp, I
wish you a good morning. As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to
give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose.

Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the
proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever. In fact, it was a little battle
between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. Heaven bless you, my child, said she, embracing
Amelia, and scowling the while over the girls shoulder at Miss Sharp. Come away, Becky, said Miss Jemima, pulling
the young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever.

Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall all the
dear friend all the young ladies the dancing-master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and
hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no
pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they parted that is, Miss Sedley
parted from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving
her.

12
 Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the
carriage. Stop! cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.

Its some sandwiches, my dear, said she to Amelia. You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp,
heres a book for you that my sister that is, I Johnsons Dixonary, you know; you mustnt leave us without that.
Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!

And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion.

But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the
book back into the garden.

This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. Well, I never said she what an audacious Emotion prevented
her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing
lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.

b) CHAPTER LIII, A rescue and a catastrophe

It was nine oclock at night. He (Rawdon) ran across the streets, and the great squares of Vanity Fair, and at length
came up breathless opposite his own house. He started back and fell against the railings, trembling as he looked up. The
drawing-room windows were blazing with light. She had said she was in bed and ill. He stood there for some time, the
light from the rooms on his pale face.

He took out his door-key and let himself into the house. He could hear laughter in the upper rooms He went
silently up the stairs Nobody was stirring in the house besides; all the servants had been sent away. Rawdon heard
laughter within laughter and singing. Becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night before; a hoarse voice
shouted, Brava! Brava! it was Lord Steynes.

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a dinner was laid out and wine and plate. Steyne
was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sate. The wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms and all
her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings, and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given her. He had her
hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of
Rawdons white face. At the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome her husband: and Steyne rose
up, grinding his teeth, pale and with fury in his looks.

He, too, attempted a laugh; and came forward, holding out his hand. What, come back! How dye do,
Crawley? he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to grin at the intruder.

There was that in Rawdons face which caused Becky to fling herself before him. I am innocent, Rawdon,
she said; before God, I am innocent! She clung hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with serpents,
and rings, and baubles. I am innocent. Say I am innocent! she said to Lord Steyne.

He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious with the wife as with the husband. You innocent!
Damn you, he screamed out. You innocent? Why, every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me. I have given
you thousands of pounds which this fellow has spent, and for which he has sold you. Innocent, by ! Youre as
innocent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and your husband the bully. Dont think to frighten me as you have done others.
Make way, sir, and let me pass; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy
fiercely in the face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting that the other would give way.

But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed, and
bent under his arm. You lie, you dog! said Rawdon. You lie, you coward and villain! And he struck the Peer twice
over the face with his open hand, and flung him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before Rebecca could interpose.
She stood there trembling before him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, and victorious.

Come here, he said. She came up at once. Take off those things. She began, trembling, pulling the jewels
from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking up at him.
Throw them down, he said, and she dropped them. He tore the diamond ornament out of her breast, and flung it at
Lord Steyne. It cut him on his bald forehead. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.

13
 Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, Alfred Tennyson is
one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children,
showed an early talent for writing. At the age of twelve he wrote a 6,000-line epic
poem. His father, the Reverend George Tennyson, tutored his sons in classical and
modern languages. In the 1820s, however, Tennysons father began to suffer
frequent mental breakdowns that were exacerbated by alcoholism. One of
Tennysons brothers had violent quarrels with his father, a second was later
confined to an insane asylum, and another became an opium addict.

Tennyson escaped home in 1827 to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1829 he

won the chancellors medal for English verse with Timbuctoo. Poems by Two Brothers (1827) contains some early
work as well as poems by his brothers Charles and Frederick. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830, incl. Mariana) was
unfavourably reviewed by Lockhart and John Wilson. Although the poems in the book were mostly juvenilia, they
attracted the attention of the Apostles, an undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. The Apostles provided
Tennyson, who was tremendously shy, with much needed friendship and confidence as a poet. Hallam and Tennyson
became the best of friends; they toured Europe together in 1830 and again in 1832. Hallams sudden death in 1833
greatly affected the young poet. The long elegy In Memoriam and many of Tennysons other poems are tributes to
Hallam.

In Dec. 1832 he published a further volume of Poems (dated 1833), which included The Two Voices, Oenone, The
Lotos-Eaters, and A Dream of Fair Women; Tithonus (1860) was composed 1833-4. Some reviewers condemned
these books as affected and obscure. Tennyson, stung by the reviews, would not publish another book for nine years.
In 1836, he became engaged to Emily Sellwood. When he lost his inheritance on a bad investment in 1840, Sellwoods
family called off the engagement. In 1842 appeared a selection from the previous two volumes, many of the poems
much revised, with new poems, incl. Morte dArthur (the germ of the Idylls), Locksley Hall, Ulysses, and St
Simeon Stylites, and it had a tremendous critical and popular success. In 1847 he published The Princess and in 1850
with the publication of In Memoriam, Tennyson became one of Britains most popular poets. He was selected Poet
Laureate in succession to Wordsworth. In that same year, he married Emily Sellwood. They had two sons, Hallam and
Lionel.

At the age of 41, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his
poetry (at times exceeding 10,000 pounds per year) allowed him to purchase a house in the country and to write in
relative seclusion. His appearance a large and bearded man, he regularly wore a cloak and a broad brimmed hat
enhanced his notoriety. He read his poetry with a booming voice, often compared to that of Dylan Thomas. He wrote
his Ode on the death of Wellington in 1852 and The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854, having at this time settled
in Farringford on the Isle of Wight. Tennysons fame was by now firmly established, and Maud, and other Poems
(1855) and the first four Idylls of the King (1859) sold very well (more than 10,000 copies in one month). Enoch Arden
Etc. appeared in 1864. The Holy Grail and Other Poems (incl. Lucretius) in 1869, The Last Tournament in the
Contemporary Review in 1871, and Gareth and Lynette, etc. in 1872. His dramas Queen Mary and Harold were
published in 1875 and 1876, and The Falcon, The Cup, and Becket in 1884, in which year he was made a peer. In 1880
appeared Ballads and Other Poems, incl. The Voyage of Maeldune, Rizpah, and The Revenge. He published
Tiresias, and Other Poems in 1885, and The Foresters appeared in 1892. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and a
life by his son Hallam appeared in 1897.

In his later years there were already signs that the admiration Tennyson had long enjoyed was beginning to wane.
Critical opinion has tended to endorse Audens view that his genius was lyrical, and that he had little talent for the
narrative, epic, and dramatic forms to which he devoted such labour. More recently there has been a revival of interest
in some of the longer poems, e.g. Locksley Hall, The Princess, and Enoch Arden.

14
THE LADY OF SHALOTT (1832)
PART I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro the field the road runs by
To many-towerd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow veild,
Slide the heavy barges traild
By slow horses; and unhaild
The shallop flitteth silken-saild
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towerd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
15
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-haird page in crimson clad,
Goes by to towerd Camelot;
And sometimes thro the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirrors magic sights,
For often thro the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
I am half sick of shadows, said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneeld
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitterd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazond baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewelld shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burnd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glowd;
On burnishd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashd into the crystal mirror,
Tirra lirra, by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She lookd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crackd from side to side;
The curse is come upon me, cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over towerd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
And down the rivers dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right
The leaves upon her falling light
Thro the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkend wholly,
Turnd to towerd Camelot.
For ere she reachd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
16
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.
THE LOTOS EATERS (1832)
Courage! he said, and pointed toward the land,
This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flushd: and, dewd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset lingerd low adown
In the red West: thro mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Borderd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seemd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seemd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seemd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, We will return no more;
And all at once they sang, Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.
CHORIC SONG
I V
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tird eyelids upon tird eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful
skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
II
Why are we weighd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumbers holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
There is no joy but calm!
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
III
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is wood from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steepd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweetend with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
IV
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted oer the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
17
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful
ease.
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each others whisperd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heapd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
VI
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath sufferd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
VII
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro the thick-twined vine
To watch the emerald-colourd water falling
Thro many a wovn acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretchd out beneath the
pine.
 VIII
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-
dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Rolld to starboard, rolld to larboard, when the surge
was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-
fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurld
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are
lightly curld
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming
world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring
deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships,
and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful
song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of
wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the
soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer some, tis whisperd
down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the
shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and
oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
ULYSSES (1842)
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matchd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoyd
Greatly, have sufferd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
18
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honourd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro
Gleams that untravelld world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnishd, not to shine in use!
As tho to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toild, and wrought, and thought with
me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho much is taken, much abides; and tho
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
 Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. His mother was an
accomplished pianist and a devout evangelical Christian. His father, who worked as a bank
clerk, was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and collector of books and pictures. His rare
book collection of more than 6,000 volumes included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin,
French, Italian, and Spanish. Much of Brownings education came from his well-read
father. It is believed that he was already proficient at reading and writing by the age of
five. A bright and anxious student, Browning learned Latin, Greek, and French by the time
he was fourteen. From fourteen to sixteen he was educated at home, attended to by various
tutors in music, drawing, dancing, and horsemanship. At the age of twelve he wrote a
volume of Byronic verse entitled Incondita, which his parents attempted, unsuccessfully,
to have published. In 1825, a cousin gave Browning a collection of Shelleys poetry; Browning was so taken with the
book that he asked for the rest of Shelleys works for his thirteenth birthday, and declared himself a vegetarian and an
atheist in emulation of the poet. Despite this early passion, he apparently wrote no poems between the ages of thirteen
and twenty. In 1828, Browning enrolled at the University of London, but he soon left, anxious to read and learn at his
own pace. The random nature of his education later surfaced in his writing, leading to criticism of his poems
obscurities.

In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline, and in 1840 he published Sordello,
which was widely regarded as a failure. He also tried his hand at drama, but his plays, including Strafford, which ran for
five nights in 1837, and the Bells and Pomegranates series, were for the most part unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the
techniques he developed through his dramatic monologues especially his use of diction, rhythm, and symbol are
regarded as his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such major poets of the twentieth century as Ezra
Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost.

After reading Elizabeth Barretts Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in
1845. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barretts father. The couple moved to Pisa and then Florence,
where they continued to write. They had a son, Robert Pen Browning, in 1849, the same year his Collected Poems was
published. Elizabeth inspired Roberts collection of poems Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to her. Now
regarded as one of Brownings best works, the book was received with little notice at the time; its author was then
primarily known as Elizabeth Barretts husband.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning soon moved to London. Browning went on to
publish Dramatis Personae (1863), and The Ring and the Book (1868). The latter, based on a seventeenth-century
Italian murder trial, received wide critical acclaim, finally earning a twilight of renown and respect in Brownings
career. The Browning Society was founded while he still lived, in 1881, and he was awarded honorary degrees by
Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. Robert Browning died on the same day that his
final volume of verse, Asolando, was published, in 1889.

PORPHYRIAS LOVER (1836) She put my arm about her waist,

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm.
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, oer all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me she
Too weak, for all her hearts endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-nights gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

19
 Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyrias love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
MY LAST DUCHESS (1842)
Ferrara
Thats my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolfs hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Willt please you sit and look at her? I said
Fr Pandolf by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not
Her husbands presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess cheek: perhaps
Fr Pandolf chanced to say, Her mantle laps
Over my Ladys wrist too much, or Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat; such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whateer
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace all and each
20
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men , good; but
thanked
Somehow I know not how as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybodys gift. Whod stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
Een then would be some stooping; and I chose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Willt please you rise? Well meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your Masters known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughters self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, well go
Together down, Sir! Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
ANDREA DEL SARTO
(Called The Faultless Painter) (1855)
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
Ill work then for your friends friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, Ill content him, but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As if forgive now should you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
And mine the mans bared breast she curls inside.
Dont count the time lost, neither; you must serve
For each of the five pictures we require:
It saves a model. So! keep looking so
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet
My face, my moon, my everybodys moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
While she looks no ones: very dear, no less.
You smile? why, theres my picture ready made,
Theres what we painters call our harmony!
A common greyness silvers everything,
All in a twilight, you and I alike
You, at the point of your first pride in me
(Thats gone you know), but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
Theres the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
That length of convent-wall across the way
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape
As if I saw alike my work and self
And all that I was born to be and do,
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in Gods hand.
How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
This chamber for example turn your head
All thats behind us! You dont understand
Nor care to understand about my art,
But you can hear at least when people speak:
And that cartoon, the second from the door
It is the thing, Love! so such things should be
Behold Madonna! I am bold to say.
I can do with my pencil what I know,
What I see, what at bottom of my heart
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep
Do easily, too when I say, perfectly,
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
Who listened to the Legates talk last week,
And just as much they used to say in France.
At any rate tis easy, all of it!
No sketches first, no studies, thats long past:
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive you dont know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whateer else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsmans hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven thats shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
The sudden blood of these men! at a word
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by mens blame
21
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
Morellos outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a mans reach should exceed his grasp,
Or whats a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
I know both what I want and what might gain,
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
Had I been two, another and myself,
Our head would have oerlooked the world! No doubt.
Yonders a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate who died five years ago.
(Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his art for it gives way;
That arm is wrongly put and there again
A fault to pardon in the drawings lines,
Its body, so to speak; its soul is right,
He means right that, a child may understand.
Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
But all the play, the insight and the stretch
Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think
More than I merit, yes, by many times.
But had you oh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowlers pipe, and follows to the snare
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
God and the glory! never care for gain.
The present by the future, what is that?
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!
I might have done it for you. So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
Besides, incentives come from the souls self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the wills somewhat somewhat, too, the power
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafaels daily wear,
In that humane great monarchs golden look,
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouths good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
And had you not grown restless... but I know
Tis done and past: twas right, my instinct said:
Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,
And Im the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was to reach and stay there; since
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
Let my hands frame your face in your hairs gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
The Romans is the better when you pray,
But still the others Virgin was his wife
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael I have known it all these years
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
Friend, theres a certain sorry little scrub
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
Who, were he set to plan and execute
As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!
To Rafaels! And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here quick, thus, the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! hes Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
If really there was such a chance, so lost,
Is, whether youre not grateful but more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; theres a star;
Morellos gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love, come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
22
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you you, and not with me? Those loans?
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, works my ware, and whats it worth?
Ill pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The grey reminder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more the Virgins face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them that is, Michel Agnolo
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousins freak. Beside,
Whats better and whats all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less.
Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
The very wrong to Francis! it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
And I have laboured somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures let him try!
No doubt, theres something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angels reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To cover the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So still they overcome
Because theres still Lucrezia, as I choose.
Again the Cousins whistle! Go, my Love.
 Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born at Laleham on the Thames, the
eldest son of Thomas Arnold, historian and great headmaster of Rugby, and of
Mary (Penrose) Arnold. He was educated at Winchester, Rugby, where he won
a prize for a poem on Alaric at Rome; and at Oxford, to which he went as a
Scholar of Balliol College in 1841. There he formed a close friendship with
Clough, won the Newdigate Prize for Cromwell, A Prize Poem, and received
a Second Class in litterae humaniores. In 1845, after a short interlude of
teaching at Rugby, he was elected Fellow of Oriel, accounted a great
distinction at Oxford.

In 1847, he became private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, who in 1851 secured

him an inspectorship of schools, which almost to the end of his life was to
absorb the greater part of his time and energies, and may have been partly
responsible for the smallness of his poetical output. But it shortly enabled him
to marry Frances Lucy Wightman, daughter of Sir William Wightman, a Judge
of the Queens Bench. Part of Dover Beach (1867) dates from his honeymoon.

His literary career leaving out the two prize poems had begun in 1849 with the publication of The Strayed Reveller
and Other Poems by A., which attracted little notice although it contained perhaps Arnolds most purely poetical
poem The Forsaken Merman, as well as The Sick King in Bokhara and sonnets written at Balliol, including
Shakespeare and was soon withdrawn. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (among them Tristram and Iseult,
and some of the Marguerite poems), published in 1852, had a similar fate.

Arnolds work as a critic begins with the Preface to the Poems which he issued in 1853 under his own name, including
extracts from the earlier volumes along with Sohrab and Rustum and The Scholar-Gipsy but significantly omitting
Empedocles. In its emphasis on the importance of subject in poetry, on clearness of arrangement, rigor of
development, simplicity of style learned from the Greeks, and in the strong imprint of Goethe and Wordsworth, may be
observed nearly all the essential elements in his critical theory. He was still primarily a poet, however, and in 1855
appeared Poems, Second Series, among them Balder Dead.

Criticism began to take first place with his appointment in 1857 to the professorship of poetry at Oxford, which he held
for two successive terms of five years. In 1858, he brought out his tragedy of Merope, calculated, he wrote to a friend,
rather to inaugurate my Professorship with dignity than to move deeply the present race of humans, and chiefly
remarkable for some experiments in unusual and unsuccessful metres. In 1861, his lectures On Translating Homer were
published, to be followed in 1862 by Last Words on Translating Homer. Especially characteristic, both of his defects
and his qualities, are on the one hand, Arnolds unconvincing advocacy of English hexameters and his creation of a kind
of literary absolute in the grand style, and, on the other, his keen feeling of the need for a disinterested and intelligent
criticism in England.

This feeling, a direct result of his admiration for France, finds fuller expression in The Function of Criticism at the
Present Time and The Literary Influence of Academies, which were published as the first two of the Essays in
Criticism (1865). The Essays are bound together by a scheme of social rather than of purely literary criticism, as is
apparent from the Preface, written in a vein of delicious irony and culminating unexpectedly in the well-known
poetically phrased tribute to Oxford.

After the publication in 1867 of New Poems, which included Thyrsis, Rugby Chapel, Heines Grave, elegies on
Clough and on Dr. Arnold, and in 1868 of the Essay on the Study of Celtic Literature, a stimulating but illusory
excursion into dangerously unfamiliar realms of philology and anthropology in imitation of Renan and perhaps of
Gobineau, Arnold turned almost entirely from literature to social and theological writings. Inspired by a fervent zeal for
bringing culture and criticism to the British middle class, beginning with the challenging Culture and Anarchy, Arnold
launched by dint of sheer repetition most of the catchwords associated with his name such as Sweetness and Light,
borrowed from Swift, and the term Philistine, borrowed from the Germans through Carlyle.

To the relief of a good many of his contemporaries, a volume appeared in 1878 called Last Essays on Church and
Religion; and the next year was published Mixed Essays. Worthy of particular mention are the two essays on the French
critic Edmond Scherer and his writings on Milton and Goethe, and that on George Sand, who had influenced him
strongly in his youth.

In 1883, Gladstone conferred on Arnold a pension of 250 a year, enabling him to retire from the post in the exercise of
which he had not only travelled the length and breadth of England, but made several trips abroad to report on

23
continental education. These reports were published in book form, and together with his ordinary reports as a school
inspector had an important effect on English education. With his increased freedom, he set out on a lecture tour in the
United States, spreading Sweetness and Light as far west as St. Louis. The three lectures on Numbers, Literature
and Science, and Emerson, which he delivered to American audiences in 1883-84, were afterwards published as
Discourses in America. He crossed the Atlantic again in 1886 on a visit to his daughter who had married an American.
When she returned the visit in 1888, he went to Liverpool to meet her, and there, while running to catch a tramcar,
suddenly died.

Essays in Criticism: Second Series which he had already collected, appeared shortly after his death. This volume,
introduced by the essay on The Study of Poetry, with the celebrated discussion of poetry as a criticism of life,
contains together with Essays in Criticism: First Series the prose work by which Arnold is best known.

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN (1849)
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
Margaret! Margaret!
Childrens voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mothers ear;
Childrens voices, wild with pain
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret.
Margaret! Margaret!
Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-walld town
And the little grey church on the windy shore,
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!
Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She combd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sighd, she lookd up through the clear green sea;
She said: I must go, to my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
Twill be Easter-time in the world ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.
I said: Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers, I said, in the world they say;
Come! I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walld town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their
prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climbd on the graves, on the stones worn with
rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded
panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart, I said, we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seald to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

24
 Down, down, down! MEMORIAL VERSES (1850)
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully. Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Hark what she sings: O joy, O joy, Long since, saw Byrons struggle cease.
For the humming street, and the child with its toy! But one such death remaind to come;
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; The last poetic voice is dumb
For the wheel where I spun, We stand to-day by Wordsworths tomb.
And the blessed light of the sun!
And so she sings her fill, When Byrons eyes were shut in death,
Singing most joyfully, We bowd our head and held our breath.
Till the spindle drops from her hand, He taught us little; but our soul
And the whizzing wheel stands still. Had felt him like the thunders roll.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, With shivering heart the strife we saw
And over the sand at the sea; Of passion with eternal law;
And her eyes are set in a stare; And yet with reverential awe
And anon there breaks a sigh, We watchd the fount of fiery life
And anon there drops a tear, Which served for that Titanic strife.
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden, When Goethes death was told, we said:
A long, long sigh; Sunk, then, is Europes sagest head.
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden Physician of the iron age,
And the gleam of her golden hair. Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
Come away, away children; He read each wound, each weakness clear;
Come children, come down! And struck his finger on the place,
The hoarse wind blows coldly; And said: Thou ailest here, and here!
Lights shine in the town. He lookd on Europes dying hour
She will start from her slumber Of fitful dream and feverish power;
When gusts shake the door; His eye plunged down the weltering strife,
She will hear the winds howling, The turmoil of expiring life
Will hear the waves roar. He said: The end is everywhere,
We shall see, while above us Art still has truth, take refuge there!
The waves roar and whirl, And he was happy, if to know
A ceiling of amber, Causes of things, and far below
A pavement of pearl. His feet to see the lurid flow
Singing: Here came a mortal, Of terror, and insane distress,
But faithless was she! And headlong fate, be happiness.
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea. And Wordsworth! Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!
For never has such soothing voice
But, children, at midnight, Been to your shadowy world conveyd,
When soft the winds blow, Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
When clear falls the moonlight, Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
When spring-tides are low; Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.
When sweet airs come seaward Wordsworth has gone from us and ye,
From heaths starrd with broom, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!
And high rocks throw mildly He too upon a wintry clime
On the blanchd sands a gloom; Had fallen on this iron time
Up the still, glistening beaches, Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
Up the creeks we will hie, He found us when the age had bound
Over banks of bright seaweed Our souls in its benumbing round;
The ebb-tide leaves dry. He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills, He laid us as we lay at birth
At the white, sleeping town; On the cool flowery lap of earth,
At the church on the hill-side Smiles broke from us and we had ease;
And then come back down. The hills were round us, and the breeze
Singing: There dwells a loved one, Went oer the sun-lit fields again;
But cruel is she! Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
She left lonely for ever Our youth returnd; for there was shed
The kings of the sea. On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furld,
The freshness of the early world.

25
Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Mans prudence and mans fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethes sage mind and Byrons force;
But where will Europes latter hour
Again find Wordsworths healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly
But who, like him, will put it by?
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
DOVER BEACH (1867)
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanchd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the gean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earths shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furld.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

26
 Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens.
John Dickens was a clerk in the Naval Pay Office. He had a poor head for finances, and
in 1824 found himself imprisoned for debt. His wife and children, with the exception of
Charles, who was put to work at Warrens Blacking Factory, joined him in the
Marshalsea Prison. When the family finances were put at least partly to rights and his
father was released, the twelve-year-old Dickens, already scarred psychologically by the
experience, was further wounded by his mothers insistence that he continue to work at
the factory. His father, however, rescued him from that fate, and between 1824 and 1827
Dickens was a day pupil at a school in London. At fifteen, he found employment as an
office boy at an attorneys, while he studied shorthand at night. His brief stint at the
Blacking Factory haunted him all of his life, he spoke of it only to his wife and to his
closest friend, John Forster. But the dark secret became a source both of creative energy
and of the preoccupation with the themes of alienation and betrayal which would
emerge, most notably, in David Copperfield and in Great Expectations.

In 1829 he became a free-lance reporter at Doctors Commons Courts, and in 1830 he met and fell in love with Maria
Beadnell, the daughter of a banker. By 1832 he had become a very successful shorthand reporter of Parliamentary
debates in the House of Commons, and began work as a reporter for a newspaper.

In 1833 his relationship with Maria Beadnell ended, probably because her parents did not think him a good match (a not
very flattering version of her would appear years later in Little Dorrit). In the same year his first published story
appeared, and was followed, very shortly thereafter, by a number of other stories and sketches. In 1834, still a
newspaper reporter, he adopted the soon to be famous pseudonym Boz. His impecunious father (who was the original
of Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield, as Dickens mother was the original for the querulous Mrs. Nickleby) was once
again arrested for debt, and Charles, much to his chagrin, was forced to come to his aid. Later in his life both of his
parents (and his brothers) were frequently after him for money. In 1835 he met and became engaged to Catherine
Hogarth.

Dickens embarked on a full-time career as a novelist, producing work of increasing complexity at an incredible rate,
although he continued, as well, his journalistic and editorial activities. Oliver Twist was begun in 1837. A son, Charles,
the first of ten children, was born in the same year.

In 1842 he embarked on a visit to Canada and the United States in which he advocated international copyright
(unscrupulous American publishers, in particular, were pirating his works) and the abolition of slavery. His American
Notes, which created a furore in America (he commented unfavourably, for one thing, on the apparently universal
and, so far as Dickens was concerned, highly distasteful American predilection for chewing tobacco and spitting the
juice), appeared in October of that year.

A Christmas Carol, the first of Dickenss enormously successful Christmas books appeared in December 1844. This
was followed by David Copperfield.

The Dickens family spent the summer of 1857 at a renovated Gads Hill. Hans Christian Anderson, whose fairy tales
Dickens admired greatly, visited them there and quickly wore out his welcome. Dickenss theatrical company
performed The Frozen Deep for the Queen, and when a young actress named Ellen Ternan joined the cast in August,
Dickens fell in love with her. The following year, he separated from his wife. They had been for many years
temperamentally unsuited to each other. Dickens, charming and brilliant though he was, was also fundamentally
insecure emotionally, and must have been extraordinarily difficult to live with. Charles Dickens suffered a stroke on
June 8, 1870, at Gads Hill and died the next day. He was buried at Westminster Abbey on June 14.

His fiction career began with short pieces reprinted as Sketches by Boz (1836). The comic novel The Pickwick Papers
(1837) made him the most popular English author of his time. Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), The Old
Curiosity Shop (1841), and Barnaby Rudge (1841) followed. After a trip to America, he wrote A Christmas Carol
(1843) in a few weeks, followed by Martin Chuzzlewit (1844). With Dombey and Son (1848), his novels began to
express a heightened uneasiness about the evils of Victorian industrial society, which intensified in the
semiautobiographical David Copperfield (1850), as well as Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit
(1857), Great Expectations (1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1865). A Tale of Two Cities (1859) appeared in the period
when he achieved great popularity for his public readings. The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) was left unfinished.
Dickenss works are characterized by attacks on social evils and inadequate institutions, an encyclopaedic knowledge of
London, pathos, a vein of the macabre, a pervasive spirit of benevolence and geniality, inexhaustible powers of
character creation, an acute ear for characteristic speech, and a highly individual and inventive prose style.

27
GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1861) (fragments)

(a) CHAPTER I

My fathers family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names
nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my fathers family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery,
who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for
their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably
derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my fathers, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout,
dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, I
drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a
half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of
mine, who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle, I am indebted for a belief I
religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had
never taken them out in this state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first
most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw
afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the
churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and
that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried;
and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered
cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair
from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and
beginning to cry, was Pip.

Hold your noise! cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church
porch. Keep still, you little devil, or Ill cut your throat!

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and
with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones,
and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and
whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

Oh! Dont cut my throat, sir, I pleaded in terror. Pray dont do it, sir.

Tell us your name! said the man. Quick!

Pip, sir.

Once more, said the man, staring at me. Give it mouth!

Pip. Pip, sir.

Show us where you live, said the man. Pint out the place!

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from
the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was
nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself, for he was so sudden and strong that he made it
go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet, when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated
on a high tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.

You young dog, said the man, licking his lips, what fat cheeks you ha got.

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

28
 Darn me if I couldnt eat em, said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, and if I hant half a mind
tot!

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldnt, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me;
partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

Now lookee here! said the man. Wheres your mother?

There, sir! said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

There, sir! I timidly explained. Also Georgiana. Thats my mother.

Oh! said he, coming back. And is that your father alonger your mother?

Yes, sir, said I; him too; late of this parish.

Ha! he muttered then, considering. Who dye live with, supposin youre kindly let to live, which I hant
made up my mind about?

My sister, sir, Mrs. Joe Gargery, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.

Blacksmith, eh? said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms,
and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked
most helplessly up into his.

Now lookee here, he said, the question being whether youre to be let to live. You know what a file is?

Yes, sir.

And you know what wittles is?

Yes, sir.

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

You get me a file. He tilted me again. And you get me wittles. He tilted me again. You bring em both to
me. He tilted me again. Or Ill have your heart and liver out. He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, If you would kindly
please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldnt be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he
held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery
over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a
person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler,
no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I aint alone, as you
may think I am. Theres a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young
man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart,
and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be
warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but
that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from
harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your
inside. Now, what do you say?

29
 I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to
him at the Battery, early in the morning.

Say Lord strike you dead if you dont! said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

Now, he pursued, you remember what youve undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get
home!

Goo-good night, sir, I faltered.

Much of that! said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms, clasping himself, as if to hold himself
together, and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the
brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people,
stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then
turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs.
But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both
arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for
stepping-places when the rains were heavy or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just
another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and
dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the
prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered, like an
unhooped cask upon a pole, an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it
which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and
come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the
cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible
young man, and could see no signs of him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

(b) CHAPTER II

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with
herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up by hand. Having at that time to find out for myself what the
expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her
husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe
Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes
of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild,
good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow, a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to
wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and
almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable
bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach
against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all; or why,
if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.

(c) CHAPTER LIX

For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily eyes, though they had both been often before my fancy
in the East, when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the latch of the
old kitchen door. I touched it so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his pipe in the old

30
place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as ever, though a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner
with Joes leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire, was I again!

We giv him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap, said Joe, delighted, when I took another stool by
the childs side (but I did not rumple his hair), and we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and we think he do.

I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we talked immensely, understanding one
another to perfection. And I took him down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, and he showed
me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana,
Wife of the Above.

Biddy, said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little girl lay sleeping in her lap, you must give Pip
to me one of these days; or lend him, at all events.

No, no, said Biddy, gently. You must marry.

So Herbert and Clara say, but I dont think I shall, Biddy. I have so settled down in their home, that its not at
all likely. I am already quite an old bachelor.

Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and then put the good matronly hand with
which she had touched it into mine. There was something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddys wedding-
ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it.

Dear Pip, said Biddy, you are sure you dont fret for her?

O no, I think not, Biddy.

Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?

My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a foremost place there, and little that ever
had any place there. But that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy, all gone by!

Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended to revisit the site of the old house that
evening, alone, for her sake. Yes, even so. For Estellas sake.

I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband, who had used her
with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And
I had heard of the death of her husband, from an accident consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had
befallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, she was married again.

The early dinner hour at Joes, left me abundance of time, without hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over
to the old spot before dark. But, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think of old times, the day
had quite declined when I came to the place.

There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the wall of the old garden. The cleared
space had been enclosed with a rough fence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew,
and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in.

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were
shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of
the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and
was looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.

The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I
drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and
let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,

Estella!

I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm
remained. Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened, softened light of
the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand.

We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, After so many years, it is strange that we should thus meet
again, Estella, here where our first meeting was! Do you often come back?

31
 I have never been here since.

Nor I.

The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white ceiling, which had passed away. The
moon began to rise, and I thought of the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on earth.

Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.

I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been prevented by many circumstances. Poor,
poor old place!

The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that
dropped from her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said quietly,

Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this condition?

Yes, Estella.

The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone from
me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all the wretched
years.

Is it to be built on?

At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And you, she said, in a voice of touching
interest to a wanderer, you live abroad still?

Still.

And do well, I am sure?

I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore yes, I do well.

I have often thought of you, said Estella.

Have you?

Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had
thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of
that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.

You have always held your place in my heart, I answered.

And we were silent again until she spoke.

I little thought, said Estella, that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do
so.

Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has
been ever mournful and painful.

But you said to me, returned Estella, very earnestly, God bless you, God forgive you! And if you could
say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now, now, when suffering has been stronger than all other
teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a
better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.

We are friends, said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench.

And will continue friends apart, said Estella.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago
when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they
showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

32
 George Eliot (1819-1880)

George Eliot (Mary Ann, later Marian, Evans) was a daughter of Robert Evans,
agent for a Warwickshire estate. She became a convert to Evangelicalism when she
was at school; she was freed from this by the influence of Charles Bray, a
freethinking Coventry manufacturer, but remained strongly influenced by religious
concepts of love and duty; her works contain many affectionate portraits of
Dissenters and clergymen.

She translated Srausss Life of Jesus which appeared without her name in 1846. In
1850 she met J. Chapman, the publisher and editor of Westminster Review, and
started contributing to this magazine, and in 1851 she became assistant editor. In
this year she became a paying guest in Chapmans house, where her emotional
attachment to him proved an embarrassment; she subsequently met Herbert
Spencer, for whom she also developed strong feelings which were not reciprocated. In 1854 she published a translation
of Feuerbachs Essence of Christianity; she endorsed his view that religious belief is an imaginative necessity for man
and a projection of his interest in his own species, a heterodoxy of which the readers of her novels only gradually
became aware.

At about the same time she joined G. H. Lewes in a union without legal form (he was already married) that lasted until
his death. The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, the first of the Scenes of Clerical Life, appeared in Blackwoods
Magazine in 1857, followed by Mr Gilfils Love-Story and Janets Repentance; these at once attracted praise for
their domestic realism, pathos, and humour, and speculation about the identity of George Eliot.

Adam Bede (1859), which established her as a leading novelist, was followed by The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas
Marner (1861). Romola was published in the Cornhill in 1862-3; Felix Holt, The Radical appeared in 1866. She
travelled in Spain in 1867, and her dramatic poem The Spanish Gypsy appeared in 1868. Middlemarch was published in
instalments in 1871-2, and Daniel Deronda, also in instalments, in 1874-6. She was by now recognized as the greatest
living English novelist, by readers as diverse as Turgenev, Henry James, and Queen Victoria. In 1878 Lewes died. Her
Impressions of Theophrastus Such appeared in 1879, and in 1880 she married the 40-year-old John Walter Cross who
had become her financial adviser. She died seven months later. After her death her reputation declined somewhat, and
Leslie Stephen indicated much of the growing reaction in an obituary notice (1881) which praised the charm and
autobiographical elements of the early works, but found the later novels painful and excessively reflective. In the late
1940s a new generation of critics, led by Leavis (The Great Tradition, 1948), introduced a new respect for and
understanding of her mature works; Leavis praises her traditional moral sensibility, her luminous intelligence.

George Eliot also wrote various poems and short stories; her letters and journals were edited by Cross (3 vols, 1885);
her complete letters were edited by G. S. Haight (9 vols, 1954-78), who also wrote a life (1968).

THE MILL ON THE FLOSS (1860) (fragments)

(a) BOOK III, CHAPTER III, The Family Council

Poor Mrs Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which she had placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and
saucer, the castors, and sugar-tongs.

See here, sister, she said, looking at Mrs Deane, as she set the tray on the table, I thought, perhaps, if you looked at
the teapot better: it makes beautiful tea, and theres a stand and everything: you might use it for everyday, or else lay it
by for Lucy when she goes to housekeeping, I should be so loath for em to buy it at the Golden Lion, said the poor
woman, her heart swelling, and her tears coming, my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think of its being
scratched, and set before the travellers and folks, and my letters on it see here, E. D. and everybody to see them.

Ah, dear, dear! said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with deep sadness, its very bad to think o the family initials
going about everywhere it niver was so before; youre a very unlucky sister, Bessy.

As to the disgrace o the family, said Mrs Glegg, that cant be helped wi buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one o
the family to ha married a man as has brought her to beggary. The disgrace is, as theyre to be sold up. We cant hinder
the country from knowing that.

33
Then, aunt, he (Tom) said, looking straight at Mrs Glegg, if you think its a disgrace to the family that we should be
sold up, wouldnt it be better to prevent it altogether? And if you and my aunt Pullet, he continued, looking at the
latter, think of leaving any money to me and Maggie, wouldnt it be better to give it now, and pay the debt were going
to be sold up for, and save my mother parting with her furniture?

There was a silence for a few moments Uncle Glegg spoke first. Ay, ay, young man come now! You show some
notion of things. But theres the interest, you must remember; your aunts get five per cent on their money, and theyd
lose that if they advanced it

Yes, Mr Glegg! said that lady And my money, as was my own fathers gift and Ive saved it, and added to it
myself, and had more to put out almost every year, and its to go and be sunk in other folks furniture, and encourage
em in luxury and extravagance as theyve no means of supporting; and Im to alter my will, or have a codicil made,
and leave two or three hundred less behind me when I die me as have always done right and been careful, and the
eldest o the family; and my moneys to go and be squandered on them as have had the same chance as me, only
theyve been wicked and wasteful

La, Jane, how fiery you are! said Mrs Pullet Im sorry for Bessy and her children Im sure I think of em o
nights dreadful, for I sleep very bad with this new medicine: but its no use for me to think o doing anything, if you
wont meet me half-way

Why do you come, then, she (Maggie) burst out, talking and interfering with us and scolding us, if you dont mean to
do anything to help my poor mother your own sister if youve no feeling for her when shes in trouble, and wont
part with anything, though you would never miss it, to save her from pain? Keep away from us then, and dont come to
find fault with my father he was better than any of you he was kind he would have helped you, if you had been in
trouble. Tom and I dont ever want to have any of your money, if you wont help my mother. Wed rather not have it!
well do without you.

(b) BOOK VI, CHAPTER XIV, Waking

When Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, weary too with his unaccustomed amount of rowing, and with the intense
inward life of the last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep, walked and lounged about the deck with his cigar far on
into midnight, not seeing the dark water, hardly conscious there were stars, living only in the near and distant future. At
last fatigue conquered restlessness, and he rolled himself up in a piece of tarpaulin on the deck near Maggies feet.

She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for six hours before the faintest hint of a midsummer
daybreak was discernible. She awoke from that vivid dreaming which makes the margin of our deeper rest. She was in a
boat on the wide water with Stephen, and in the gathering darkness something like a star appeared, that grew and grew
till they saw it was the Virgin seated in St. Oggs boat, and it came nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was Lucy
and the boatman was Philip, no, not Philip, but her brother, who rowed past without looking at her; and she rose to
stretch out her arms and call to him, and their own boat turned over with the movement, and they began to sink, till with
one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she was a child again in the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom was
not really angry. From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed to the real waking, to the plash of water
against the vessel, and the sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was a moment of utter
bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled from the confused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible
truth urged itself upon her. Stephen was not by her now; she was alone with her own memory and her own dread. The
irrevocable wrong that must blot her life had been committed; she had brought sorrow into the lives of others, into the
lives that were knit up with hers by trust and love. The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her into the sins her
nature had most recoiled from, breach of faith and cruel selfishness; she had rent the ties that had given meaning to
duty, and had made herself an outlawed soul, with no guide but the wayward choice of her own passion. And where
would that lead her? Where had it led her now? She had said she would rather die than fall into that temptation. She felt
it now, now that the consequences of such a fall had come before the outward act was completed. There was at least
this fruit from all her years of striving after the highest and best, that her soul though betrayed, beguiled, ensnared,
could never deliberately consent to a choice of the lower. And a choice of what? O God! not a choice of joy, but of
conscious cruelty and hardness; for could she ever cease to see before her Lucy and Philip, with their murdered trust
and hopes? Her life with Stephen could have no sacredness; she must forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by
uncertain impulse; for she had let go the clue of life, that clue which once in the far-off years her young need had
clutched so strongly. She had renounced all delights then, before she knew them, before they had come within her
reach. Philip had been right when he told her that she knew nothing of renunciation; she had thought it was quiet
ecstasy; she saw it face to face now, that sad, patient, loving strength which holds the clue of life, and saw that the

34
thorns were forever pressing on its brow. The yesterday, which could never be revoked, if she could have changed it
now for any length of inward silent endurance, she would have bowed beneath that cross with a sense of rest.

Day break came and the reddening eastern light, while her past life was grasping her in this way, with that
tightening clutch which comes in the last moments of possible rescue. She could see Stephen now lying on the deck still
fast asleep, and with the sight of him there came a wave of anguish that found its way in a long-suppressed sob. The
worst bitterness of parting the thought that urged the sharpest inward cry for help was the pain it must give to him.
But surmounting everything was the horror at her own possible failure, the dread lest her conscience should be
benumbed again, and not rise to energy till it was too late. Too late! it was too late already not to have caused misery;
too late for everything, perhaps, but to rush away from the last act of baseness, the tasting of joys that were wrung
from crushed hearts.

The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the sense that a day of resistance was beginning for her.
Her eyelashes were still wet with tears, as, with her shawl over her head, she sat looking at the slowly rounding sun.
Something roused Stephen too, and getting up from his hard bed, he came to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of
anxious love saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He had a hovering dread of some resistance in
Maggies nature that he would be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy consciousness that he had robbed her of
perfect freedom yesterday; there was too much native honor in him, for him not to feel that, if her will should recoil, his
conduct would have been odious, and she would have a right to reproach him.

But Maggie did not feel that right; she was too conscious of fatal weakness in herself, too full of the tenderness
that comes with the foreseen need for inflicting a wound. She let him take her hand when he came to sit down beside
her, and smiled at him, only with rather a sad glance; she could say nothing to pain him till the moment of possible
parting was nearer. And so they drank their cup of coffee together, and walked about the deck, and heard the captains
assurance that they should be in at Mudport by five oclock, each with an inward burthen; but in him it was an
undefined fear, which he trusted to the coming hours to dissipate; in her it was a definite resolve on which she was
trying silently to tighten her hold. Stephen was continually, through the morning, expressing his anxiety at the fatigue
and discomfort she was suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change of motion and repose she would have in a
carriage, wanting to assure himself more completely by presupposing that everything would be as he had arranged it.
For a long while Maggie contented herself with assuring him that she had had a good nights rest, and that she didnt
mind about being on the vessel, it was not like being on the open sea, it was only a little less pleasant than being in a
boat on the Floss. But a suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes, and Stephen became more and more uneasy as
the day advanced, under the sense that Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He longed, but did not dare, to speak of
their marriage, of where they would go after it, and the steps he would take to inform his father, and the rest, of what
had happened. He longed to assure himself of a tacit assent from her. But each time he looked at her, he gathered a
stronger dread of the new, quiet sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more and more silent.

Here we are in sight of Mudport, he said at last. Now, dearest, he added, turning toward her with a look that
was half beseeching, the worst part of your fatigue is over. On the land we can command swiftness. In another hour
and a half we shall be in a chaise together, and that will seem rest to you after this.

Maggie felt it was time to speak; it would only be unkind now to assent by silence. She spoke in the lowest
tone, as he had done, but with distinct decision.

We shall not be together; we shall have parted.

The blood rushed to Stephens face.

We shall not, he said. Ill die first.

It was as he had dreaded there was a struggle coming. But neither of them dared to say another word till the
boat was let down, and they were taken to the landing-place. Here there was a cluster of gazers and passengers awaiting
the departure of the steamboat to St. Oggs. Maggie had a dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying
her along on his arm, that some one had advanced toward her from that cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. But
she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything but the coming trial.

A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house, and Stephen gave the order for the chaise as they
passed through the yard. Maggie took no notice of this, and only said, Ask them to show us into a room where we can
sit down.

35
 When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face had a desperate determination in it, was
about to ring the bell, when she said, in a firm voice,

Im not going; we must part here.

Maggie, he said, turning round toward her, and speaking in the tones of a man who feels a process of torture
beginning, do you mean to kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done.

No, it is not done, said Maggie. Too much is done, more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will
go no farther. Dont try to prevail with me again. I couldnt choose yesterday.

What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger might leap out, and make a new barrier. He walked
backward and forward in maddening perplexity.

Maggie, he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a tone of imploring wretchedness, have some
pity hear me forgive me for what I did yesterday. I will obey you now; I will do nothing without your full consent.
But dont blight our lives forever by a rash perversity that can answer no good purpose to any one, that can only create
new evils. Sit down, dearest; wait think what you are going to do. Dont treat me as if you couldnt trust me.

He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggies will was fixed unswervingly on the coming wrench.
She had made up her mind to suffer.

We must not wait, she said, in a low but distinct voice; we must part at once.

We cant part, Maggie, said Stephen, more impetuously. I cant bear it. What is the use of inflicting that
misery on me? The blow whatever it may have been has been struck now. Will it help any one else that you should
drive me mad?

I will not begin any future, even for you, said Maggie, tremulously, with a deliberate consent to what ought
not to have been. What I told you at Basset I feel now; I would rather have died than fall into this temptation. It would
have been better if we had parted forever then. But we must part now.

We will not part, Stephen burst out, instinctively placing his back against the door, forgetting everything he
had said a few moments before; I will not endure it. Youll make me desperate; I shant know what I do.

Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected suddenly. She must rely on a slower appeal to
Stephens better self; she must be prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while resolution was fresh. She
sat down. Stephen, watching her with that look of desperation which had come over him like a lurid light, approached
slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her, and grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a frightened
bird; but this direct opposition helped her. She felt her determination growing stronger.

Remember what you felt weeks ago, she began, with beseeching earnestness; remember what we both felt,
that we owed ourselves to others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false to that debt. We have
failed to keep our resolutions; but the wrong remains the same.

No, it does not remain the same, said Stephen. We have proved that it was impossible to keep our
resolutions. We have proved that the feeling which draws us toward each other is too strong to be overcome. That
natural law surmounts every other; we cant help what it clashes with.

It is not so, Stephen; Im quite sure that is wrong. I have tried to think it again and again; but I see, if we
judged in that way, there would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty; we should justify breaking the most sacred
ties that can ever be formed on earth. If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the
inclination of the moment.

But there are ties that cant be kept by mere resolution, said Stephen, starting up and walking about again.
What is outward faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as constancy without love?

Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as well as an outward contest. At last she
said, with a passionate assertion of her conviction, as much against herself as against him,

36
 That seems right at first; but when I look further, Im sure it is not right. Faithfulness and constancy mean
something else besides doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean renouncing whatever is opposed
to the reliance others have in us, whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made
dependent on us. If we if I had been better, nobler, those claims would have been so strongly present with me, I
should have felt them pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now in the moments when my conscience is
awake, that the opposite feeling would never have grown in me, as it has done; it would have been quenched at once, I
should have prayed for help so earnestly, I should have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no excuse
for myself, none. I should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I have done, if I had not been weak, selfish, and
hard, able to think of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all temptation. Oh, what is Lucy
feeling now? She believed in me she loved me she was so good to me. Think of her

Maggies voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words.

I cant think of her, said Stephen, stamping as if with pain. I can think of nothing but you, Maggie. You
demand of a man what is impossible. I felt that once; but I cant go back to it now. And where is the use of your
thinking of it, except to torture me? You cant save them from pain now; you can only tear yourself from me, and make
my life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both fulfil our engagements, if that were possible now,
it would be hateful, horrible, to think of your ever being Philips wife, of your ever being the wife of a man you didnt
love. We have both been rescued from a mistake.

A deep flush came over Maggies face, and she couldnt speak. Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking
her hand in his, and looking at her with passionate entreaty.

Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who can have so great a claim on you as I have? My life is
bound up in your love. There is nothing in the past that can annul our right to each other; it is the first time we have
either of us loved with our whole heart and soul.

Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down. Stephen was in a flutter of new hope; he was going to
triumph. But she raised her eyes and met his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of regret, not with yielding.

No, not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen, she said with timid resolution. I have never consented to it
with my whole mind. There are memories, and affections, and longings after perfect goodness, that have such a strong
hold on me; they would never quit me for long; they would come back and be pain to me repentance. I couldnt live in
peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. I have caused sorrow already I know I feel it; but
I have never deliberately consented to it; I have never said, They shall suffer, that I may have joy. It has never been
my will to marry you; if you were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not
have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer
affections, and live without the joy of love.

Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down the room in suppressed rage.

Good God! he burst out at last, what a miserable thing a womans love is to a mans! I could commit crimes
for you, and you can balance and choose in that way. But you dont love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me
that I have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with
you that you are robbing me of my lifes happiness.

Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as she held them clasped on her lap. A great terror
was upon her, as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning, and then again
stretched forth her hands in the darkness.

No, I dont sacrifice you I couldnt sacrifice you, she said, as soon as she could speak again; but I cant
believe in a good for you, that I feel, that we both feel, is a wrong toward others. We cant choose happiness either for
ourselves or for another; we cant tell where that will lie. We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the
present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us, for the sake of
being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this belief is hard; it has slipped away from me again and
again; but I have felt that if I let it go forever, I should have no light through the darkness of this life.

But, Maggie, said Stephen, seating himself by her again, is it possible you dont see that what happened
yesterday has altered the whole position of things? What infatuation is it, what obstinate prepossession, that blinds you
to that? It is too late to say what we might have done or what we ought to have done. Admitting the very worst view of

37
what has been done, it is a fact we must act on now; our position is altered; the right course is no longer what it was
before. We must accept our own actions and start afresh from them. Suppose we had been married yesterday? It is
nearly the same thing. The effect on others would not have been different. It would only have made this difference to
ourselves, Stephen added bitterly, that you might have acknowledged then that your tie to me was stronger than to
others.

Again a deep flush came over Maggies face, and she was silent. Stephen thought again that he was beginning
to prevail, he had never yet believed that he should not prevail; there are possibilities which our minds shrink from too
completely for us to fear them.

Dearest, he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward her, and putting his arm round her, you are
mine now, the world believes it; duty must spring out of that now: in a few hours you will be legally mine, and those
who had claims on us will submit, they will see that there was a force which declared against their claims.

Maggies eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was close to hers, and she started up, pale
again.

Oh, I cant do it, she said, in a voice almost of agony; Stephen, dont ask me dont urge me. I cant argue
any longer, I dont know what is wise; but my heart will not let me do it. I see, I feel their trouble now; it is as if it
were branded on my mind. I have suffered, and had no one to pity me; and now I have made others suffer. It would
never leave me; it would embitter your love to me. I do care for Philip in a different way; I remember all we said to
each other; I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. He was given to me that I might make his lot
less hard; and I have forsaken him. And Lucy she has been deceived; she who trusted me more than any one. I cannot
marry you; I cannot take a good for myself that has been wrung out of their misery. It is not the force that ought to rule
us, this that we feel for each other; it would rend me away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me. I
cant set out on a fresh life, and forget that; I must go back to it, and cling to it, else I shall feel as if there were nothing
firm beneath my feet.

Good God, Maggie! said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm, you rave. How can you go back without
marrying me? You dont know what will be said, dearest. You see nothing as it really is.

Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess everything. Lucy will believe me she will forgive you,
and and oh, some good will come by clinging to the right. Dear, dear Stephen, let me go! dont drag me into
deeper remorse. My whole soul has never consented; it does not consent now.

Stephen let go her arm, and sank back on his chair, half-stunned by despairing rage. He was silent a few
moments, not looking at her; while her eyes were turned toward him yearningly, in alarm at this sudden change. At last
he said, still without looking at her,

Go, then, leave me; dont torture me any longer, I cant bear it.

Involuntarily she leaned toward him and put out her hand to touch his. But he shrank from it as if it had been
burning iron, and said again,

Leave me.

Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away from that gloomy averted face, and walked out of
the room; it was like an automatic action that fulfils a forgotten intention. What came after? A sense of stairs descended
as if in a dream, of flagstones, of a chaise and horses standing, then a street, and a turning into another street where a
stage-coach was standing, taking in passengers, and the darting thought that that coach would take her away, perhaps
toward home. But she could ask nothing yet; she only got into the coach.

Home where her mother and brother were, Philip, Lucy, the scene of her very cares and trials was the
haven toward which her mind tended; the sanctuary where sacred relics lay, where she would be rescued from more
falling. The thought of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing pain, which yet, as such pains do, seemed to urge all other
thoughts into activity. But among her thoughts, what others would say and think of her conduct was hardly present.
Love and deep pity and remorseful anguish left no room for that.

The coach was taking her to York, farther away from home; but she did not learn that until she was set down in
the old city at midnight. It was no matter; she could sleep there, and start home the next day. She had her purse in her

38
pocket, with all her money in it, a bank-note and a sovereign; she had kept it in her pocket from forgetfulness, after
going out to make purchases the day before yesterday.

Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that night with her will bent unwaveringly on the path
of penitent sacrifice? The great struggles of life are not so easy as that; the great problems of life are not so clear. In the
darkness of that night she saw Stephens face turned toward her in passionate, reproachful misery; she lived through
again all the tremulous delights of his presence with her that made existence an easy floating in a stream of joy, instead
of a quiet resolved endurance and effort. The love she had renounced came back upon her with a cruel charm; she felt
herself opening her arms to receive it once more; and then it seemed to slip away and fade and vanish, leaving only the
dying sound of a deep, thrilling voice that said, Gone, forever gone.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Thomas Hardy was born at Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester in Dorset. He was
a son of a stonemason. At the age of 16 he was articled to a local architect and when
he was 22 he went to London to continue his architectural work, returning home in
1867. During this time he lost his religious faith. In 1874 he gave up architecture for
writing, and married Emma Gifford. He and his wife travelled in Europe and Hardy
spent several months of nearly every year in London. He greatly enjoyed the
admiration of Londons literary and aristocratic society, but resented the constant
carping of reviewers on his pessimism and immorality; the hostile reception of
his last two major novels led him to abandon fiction and devote himself to poetry,
always his first love. In 1912 Emma died and in 1914 Hardy married Florence
Dugdale.

The underlying theme of many of Hardys novels, the short poems, and the epic
drama The Dynasts is the struggle of man against the indifferent force that rules the world and inflicts on him the
sufferings and ironies of life and love. Hardys sharp sense of the humorous and absurd finds expression largely in the
affectionate presentation of the rustic characters in the novels. Most of the poems and novels reveal Hardys love and
observation of the natural world, often with strong symbolic effect.

Hardys novels and short stories, according to his own classification, fall into three groups:
Novels of Character and Environment: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872); Far from the Madding Crowd (1874);
The Return of the Native (1878); The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886); The Woodlanders (1887); Tess of the
DUrbervilles (1891); Jude the Obscure (1896, in the edition of the Works that year).
Romances and Fantasies: A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873); The Trumpet Major (1880); Two on a Tower (1882); The
Well-Beloved (published serially 1892, revised and reissued 1897).
Novels of Ingenuity: Desperate Remedies (1891); The Hand of Ethelberta (1876); A Laodicean (1881)

Hardy published eight volumes of poetry: Wessex Poems (1898); Poems of the Past and Present (1902); Times
Laughingstocks (1909); Satires of Circumstance (1914); Moments of Vision (1917); Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922);
Human Shows (1925); Winter Words (1928). The Collected Poems (1930), published posthumously, contain over 900
poems of great variety and individuality, yet consistent over more than 60 years in their attitudes to life and fate.
Probably the most remarkable are in the group of poems written in recollection of his first wife (Poems of 1912-13 in
Satires of Circumstance). Hardy followed Wordsworth and R. Browning in his endeavour to write in a language close
to that of speech. He experimented constantly with rhythms and stresses and verse forms, disliking and avoiding any
facile flow.

He published over 40 short stories, most of which were collected in Wessex Tales (1888); A Group of Noble Dames
(1891); Lifes Little Ironies (1894); and A Changed Man (1913). Hardy wrote two dramas: The Dynasts (3 vols, 1904-8)
in blank verse and prose; and The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall (1923).

39
TESS OF THE DURBERVILLES (1891) (fragments)

(a) PHASE THE FIRST: MAIDEN, CHAPTER IV

He (Abraham) leant back against the hives, and with upturned face made observation on the stars, whose cold pulses
were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life

Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?

Yes.

All like ours?

I dont know; I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them
splendid and sound a few blighted.

Which do we live on a splendid one or a blighted one?

A blighted one.

Tis very unlucky that we didnt pitch on a sound one, when there were so many more of em!

Yes.

Is it like that really, Tess? said Abraham, turning to her much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare
information. How would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?

Well, father wouldnt have coughed and creeped about as he does, and wouldnt have got too tipsy to go this
journey; and mother wouldnt have been always washing, and never getting finished.

And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have had to be made rich by marrying a
gentleman?

O Aby, dont dont talk of that any more!

Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for
superfluous movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than
ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to
fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul,
coterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time.

Then examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see the vanity of her fathers pride; the
gentlemanly suitor awaiting herself in her mothers fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty,
and her shrouded knightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how time
passed. A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she, too, had fallen

The lantern hanging at her wagon had gone out, but another was shining in her face much brighter than her
own had been. Something terrible had happened. The harness was entangled, with an object which blocked the way.

In consternation Tess jumped down and discovered the dreadful truth. The groan had proceeded from her
fathers poor horse Prince. The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along these lanes like an
arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the
breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his lifes blood was spouting in a stream, and falling
with a hiss into the road.

In her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole, with the only result that she became
splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops

Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isnt it Tess? murmured Abraham through his
tears.

40
(b) PHASE THE FIFTH: THE WOMAN PAYS, CHAPTER XXXV

I thought, Angel, that you loved me me, my very self! If it is I you do love, O how can it be that you look
and speak so? It frightens me! Having begun to love you, I love you for ever in all changes, in all disgraces, because
you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?

I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you.

But who?

Another woman in your shape.

She perceived in his words the realization of her own apprehensive foreboding in former times. He looked
upon her as a species of imposter; a guilty woman in the guise of an innocent one. Terror was upon her white face as
she saw it; her cheek was flaccid, and her mouth had almost the aspect of a round little hole. The horrible sense of his
view of her so deadened her that she staggered, and he stepped forward, thinking she was going to fall.

Sit down, sit down, he said gently. You are ill; and it is natural that you should be.

She did sit down, without knowing where she was, that strained look still upon her face, and her eyes such as
to make his flesh creep.

I dont belong to you any more, then; do I, Angel? she asked helplessly. It is not me, but another woman like
me that he loved, he says.

The image raised caused her to take pity upon herself as one who was ill-used. Her eyes filled as she regarded
her position further; she turned round and burst into a flood of self-sympathetic tears.

Clare was relieved at this change, for the effect on her of what had happened was beginning to be a trouble to
him only less than the woe of the disclosure itself. He waited patiently, apathetically, till the violence of her grief had
worn itself out, and her rush of weeping had lessened to a catching gasp at intervals.

Angel, she said suddenly, in her natural tones, the insane, dry voice of terror having left her now. Angel, am
I too wicked for you and me to live together?

I have not been able to think what we can do.

I shant ask you to let me live with you, Angel, because I have no right to! I shall not write to mother and
sisters to say we be married, as I said I would do; and I shant finish the good-hussif I cut out and meant to make while
we were in lodgings.

Shant you?

No, I shant do anything, unless you order me to; and if you go away from me I shall not follow ee; and if
you never speak to me any more I shall not ask why, unless you tell me I may.

And if I order you to do anything?

I will obey you like your wretched slave, even if it is to lie down and die.

You are very good. But it strikes me that there is a want of harmony between your present mood of self-
sacrifice and your past mood of self-preservation.

These were the first words of antagonism. To fling elaborate sarcasms at Tess, however, was much like
flinging them at a dog or cat. The charms of their subtlety passed by her unappreciated, and she only received them as
inimical sounds which meant that anger ruled. She remained mute, not knowing that he was smothering his affection for
her. She hardly observed that a tear descended slowly upon his cheek, a tear so large that it magnified the pores of the
skin over which it rolled, like the object lens of a microscope. Meanwhile reillumination as to the terrible and total

41
change that her confession had wrought in his life, in his universe, returned to him, and he tried desperately to advance
among the new conditions in which he stood. Some consequent action was necessary; yet what?

(c) PHASE THE SEVENTH: FULFILMENT, CHAPTER LVIII

What monstrous place is this? said Angel.

It hums, said she. Hearken!

He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-
stringed harp. No other sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or two, Clare felt the vertical
surface of the structure. It seemed to be of solid stone, without joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers onward he found
that what he had come in contact with was a colossal rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a
similar one adjoining. At an indefinite height overhead something made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance
of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They carefully entered beneath and between; the surfaces echoed
their soft rustle; but they seemed to be still out of doors. The place was roofless. Tess drew her breath fearfully, and
Angel, perplexed, said

What can it be?

Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square and uncompromising as the first; beyond it
another and another. The place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous architraves.

A very Temple of the Winds, he said.

The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others were prostrate, their flanks forming a
causeway wide enough for a carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of monoliths grouped upon the
grassy expanse of the plain. The couple advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in its midst.

It is Stonehenge! said Clare.

The heathen temple, you mean?

Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the dUrbervilles! Well, what shall we do, darling? We may find
shelter further on.

But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered
from the wind by a pillar. Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the stone was warm and dry, in
comforting contrast to the rough and chill grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.

I dont want to go any further, Angel, she said, stretching out her hand for his. Cant we bide here?

I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does not seem so now.

One of my mothers people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays
that I was a heathen. So now I am at home.

He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon hers.

Sleepy are you, dear? I think you are lying on an altar.

I like very much to be here, she murmured. It is so solemn and lonely after my great happiness with
nothing but the sky above my face. It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two; and I wish there were not
except Liza-Lu.

Clare thought she might as well rest here till it should get a little lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her,
and sat down by her side.

42
 Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over Liza-Lu for my sake? she asked, when they had
listened a long time to the wind among the pillars.

I will.

She is so good and simple and pure. O, Angel I wish you would marry her if you lose me, as you will do
shortly. O, if you would!

If I lose you I lose all! And she is my sister-in-law.

Thats nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws continually about Marlott; and Liza-Lu is so gentle and
sweet, and she is growing so beautiful. O, I could share you with her willingly when we are spirits! If you would train
her and teach her, Angel, and bring her up for your own self! She had all the best of me without the bad of me; and if
she were to become yours it would almost seem as if death had not divided us Well, I have said it. I wont mention it
again.

She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far north-east sky he could see between the pillars a level streak of
light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot, letting in at the earths edge the
coming day, against which the towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.

Did they sacrifice to God here? asked she.

No, said he.

Who to?

I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself is in the direction of the sun, which will presently rise
behind it.

This reminds me, dear, she said. You remember you never would interfere with any belief of mine before we
were married? But I knew your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought not from any reasons of my own, but
because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know.

He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.

O, Angel I fear that means no! said she, with a suppressed sob. And I wanted so to see you again so
much, so much! What not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?

Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer; and they were again
silent. In a minute or two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The
band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near; and
the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day.
The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone
beyond them; and the Stone of Sacrifice midway. Presently the night wind died out, and the quivering little pools in the
cup-like hollows of the stones lay still. At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the dip eastward
a mere dot. It was the head of a man approaching them from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone. Clare wished they had
gone onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came straight towards the circle of pillars in
which they were.

He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw over the prostrate columns another figure;
then before he was aware, another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on the left. The dawn shone
full on the front of the man westward, and Clare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if trained. They
all closed in with evident purpose. Her story then was true! Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon, loose
stone, means of escape, anything. By this time the nearest man was upon him.

It is no use, sir, he said. There are sixteen of us on the Plain, and the whole country is reared.

Let her finish her sleep! he implored in a whisper of the men as they gathered round.

43
 When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they showed no objection, and stood
watching her, as still as the pillars around. He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor little hand; her
breathing now was quick and small, like that of a lesser creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their
faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain
still a mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her unconscious form, peering under her eyelids
and waking her.

What is it, Angel? she said, starting up. Have they come for me?

Yes, dearest, he said. They have come.

It is as it should be, she murmured. Angel, I am almost glad yes, glad! This happiness could not have
lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!

She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved.

I am ready, she said quietly.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills studied at Trinity College, Dublin, then at
Magdalen College, Oxford, where in 1878 he won the Newdigate Prize for his
poem Ravenna. His flamboyant aestheticism attracted attention, much of it
hostile; he proclaimed himself a disciple of Pater and the cult of Art for Arts
sake mocked in Gilbert and Sullivans Patience (1881). Wilde undertook a lecture
tour of the United States in 1882, after the publication of his first volume of verse,
Poems (1881). In 1884 he married, and in 1888 published a volume of fairy-stories,
The Happy Prince and other tales, written for his sons. In 1891 followed Lord
Arthur Saviles Crime, and other stories and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian
Gray, a Gothic melodrama. Wilde claimed in his preface, There is no such thing
as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is
all.

He published A House of Pomegranates (1891), fairy-stories; and The Duchess of

Padua (1891), a dull verse tragedy. He achieved theatrical success with his comedies Lady Windermeres Fan (1892); A
Woman of No Importance (1893); An Ideal Husband (1895); and his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895). Salom (now known chiefly by Richard Strausss opera), written in French, was refused a licence, but
performed in Paris in 1896 and published in 1894 in an English translation by Lord Alfred Douglas with illustrations by
Beardsley.

Lord Alfreds father, the marquess of Queensberry, disapproved of his sons friendship with Wilde and publicly
insulted the playwright. This started a chain of events which led to Wildes imprisonment for homosexual offences in
1895. He was declared bankrupt while in prison and wrote a letter of bitter reproach to Lord Alfred, published in part in
1905 as De Profundis. He was released in 1897 and went to France where he wrote The Ballad f Reading Gaol (1898),
inspired by his prison experience. In exile he adopted the name Sebastian Melmoth, after the romance by Maturin. He
died in Paris.

His other writings include critical dialogues (The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist, 1891) and The Soul of
Man under Socialism, a plea for individualism and artistic freedom, first published in the Fortnightly Review in 1891. A
volume of letters, ed. R. Hart-Davis, appeared in 1962.

44
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1891) (fragments)

(a) PREFACE

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is arts aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The
highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those
who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom
beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth-century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth-
century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the
perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies.
An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is
the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actors craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a
useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

(b) CHAPTER XI

Yet he (Dorian Gray) was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to society. Once or twice every month
during the winter, and on each Wednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the world his
beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the day charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His
little dinners, in the setting of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted as much for careful selection and
placing of those invited, as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with its subtle symphonic
arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed, there were many,
especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type
which they had often dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of the real culture of the
scholar with all the grace and distinction and perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to be of the
company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to make themselves perfect by the worship of beauty. Like
Gautier, he was one for whom the visible world existed.

And, certainly, to him Life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be
but a preparation. Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment universal, and Dandyism, which, in
its own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him. His mode
of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to time he affected, had their marked influence on the young
exquisites of the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in everything he did, and tried to reproduce
the accidental charm of his graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.

For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost immediately offered him on his coming
of age, and found, indeed, a subtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the London of his own day
what to the imperial Neronian Rome the author of the Satyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be
something more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a
necktie, or the conduct of a cane. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have its reasoned
philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.

45
 The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been decried, men feeling a natural instinct of
terror about passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are conscious of sharing with the
less highly organized forms of existence. But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never
been understood, and that they remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into
submission or to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine
instinct for beauty was to be the dominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through History, ha was
haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful
rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear, and whose result was a degradation
infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape, Nature,
in her wonderful irony, driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to the hermit the
beasts of the field as his companions.

Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and to save it
from that harsh, uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was to have its service of the
intellect, certainly; yet it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of
passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as
they might be. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know
nothing. But it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment

But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal acceptance of creed or
system, or of mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for a sojourn of a night, or for a few
hours of a night in which there were no stars and the moon is in travail. Mysticism, with its marvellous power of
making common things strange to us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for
a season; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and
found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white
nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,
morbid or healthy, normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any
importance compared to life itself. He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated
from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal.

And so he would now study perfumes, and the secrets of their manufacture, distilling, heavily-scented oils, and
burning odorous gums from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the
sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations wondering what there was in frankincense that made one
mystical, and in ambergris that stirred ones passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in
musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that satined the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real
psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden
flowers, of aromatic balms, and of dark and fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad,
and of aloes that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul

On one occasion he took up the study of jewellery, and appeared at a costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse,
Admiral of France, in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled him for years, and,
indeed, may be said never to have left him. He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the
various stones he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its
wirelike line of silver, the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet
with tremulous four-rayed stars, flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their
alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstones pearly whiteness, and
the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness
of colour and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.

46
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1895) (fragment)

ACT I

Lady Bracknell Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.

Gwendolen Mamma! [He tries to rise; she restrains him.] I must beg you to retire. This is no place for you.
Besides, Mr. Worthing has not quite finished yet.

Lady Bracknell Finished what, may I ask?

Gwendolen I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma. [They rise together.]

Lady Bracknell Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your
father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a
surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for
herself And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you,
Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.

Gwendolen [Reproachfully.] Mamma!

Lady Bracknell In the carriage, Gwendolen! [Gwendolen goes to the door. She and Jack blow kisses to each other
behind Lady Bracknells back. Lady Bracknell looks vaguely about as if she could not understand what the noise was.
Finally turns round.] Gwendolen, the carriage!

Gwendolen Yes, mamma. [Goes out, looking back at Jack.]

Lady Bracknell [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing.

[Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil.]

Jack Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.

Lady Bracknell [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible
young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However, I am
quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?

Jack Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

Lady Bracknell I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many
idle men in London as it is. How old are you?

Jack Twenty-nine.

Lady Bracknell A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get
married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?

Jack [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.

Lady Bracknell I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance
is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically
unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a
serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?

Jack Between seven and eight thousand a year.

Lady Bracknell [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments?

Jack In investments, chiefly.

Lady Bracknell That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of one during ones lifetime, and the duties
exacted from one after ones death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and
prevents one from keeping it up. Thats all that can be said about land.

Jack I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I dont
depend on that for my real income. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the only people who make
anything out of it.

47
Lady Bracknell A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point can be cleared up afterwards. You have a
town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the
country.

Jack Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham. Of course, I can get it back
whenever I like, at six months notice.

Lady Bracknell Lady Bloxham? I dont know her.

Jack Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in years.

Lady Bracknell Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What number in Belgrave Square?

Jack 149.

Lady Bracknell [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could
easily be altered.

Jack Do you mean the fashion, or the side?

Lady Bracknell [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your politics?

Jack Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.

Lady Bracknell Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any rate. Now to minor
matters. Are your parents living?

Jack I have lost both my parents.

Lady Bracknell To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like
carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers
call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

Jack I am afraid I really dont know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the
truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me I dont actually know who I am by birth. I was well, I was found.

Lady Bracknell Found!

Jack The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave
me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time.
Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.

Lady Bracknell Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?

Jack [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.

Lady Bracknell A hand-bag?

Jack [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with
handles to it an ordinary hand-bag in fact.

Lady Bracknell In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?

Jack In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.

Lady Bracknell The cloak-room at Victoria Station?

Jack Yes. The Brighton line.

Lady Bracknell The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just
told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a
contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag
was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion has probably, indeed, been
used for that purpose before now but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good
society.

48
Jack May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to
ensure Gwendolens happiness.

Lady Bracknell I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and
to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.

Jack Well, I dont see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my
dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

Lady Bracknell Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream
of allowing our only daughter a girl brought up with the utmost care to marry into a cloak-room, and form an
alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

[Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.]

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Shaw was born in Dublin, but came to London in 1876. After an unsuccessful career
as a novelist, he wrote music, art, and book criticism for several periodicals including
the Pall Mall Gazette (1885-8) and The Star (1888-90, as Corno di Bassetto). His
music criticism has been collected as Shaws Music. As drama critic for The Saturday
Review (1895-8) he produced a series of remarkable and controversial weekly articles
(published as Our Theatres in the Nineties, 1932), voicing his impatience with the
artificiality of the London theatre and pleading for the performance of plays dealing
with contemporary social and moral problems. During these years he joined several
literary and political societies, notably the Fabian Society; he edited and contributed to
Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889) and wrote many tracts setting down his socialist and
collectivistic principles. He was a freethinker, a supporter of womens rights, and an
advocate of equality of income, the abolition of private property, and a radical change
in the voting system. He also campaigned for the simplification of spelling and
punctuation and the reform of the English alphabet.

He was well known as a journalist and public speaker when his first play Widowers Houses (pub. 1893), was produced
in 1892. There followed Arms and the Man (1894, pub. 1898), The Devils Disciple (perf. NY 1897, pub. 1901), You
Never Can Tell (1899, pub. 1898), Caesar and Cleopatra (pub. 1901, perf. Berlin 1906), Mrs Warrens Profession
(pub. 1898, perf. 1902), and John Bulls Other Island (1904. pub. NY 1907), a play which, thanks to its characteristic
Shavian wit, brought his first popular success in London.

Shaw wrote over 50 plays, including Man and Superman (pub. 1903, perf. 1905), Major Barbara (1905, pub. 1907),
The Doctors Dilemma (1906, pub. Berlin 1908), Getting Married (1908, pub. Berlin 1910), Androcles and the Lion
(pub. Berlin 1912, perf. Hamburg 1913), Pygmalion (perf, Vienna 1913, pub. Berlin 1913, later turned into a popular
musical My Fair Lady), Heartbreak House (pub. 1919, perf. 1920, both NY), Back to Methuselah (perf. and pub. NY
1921), Saint Joan (perf. NY 1923, pub. 1924), The Apple Cart (perf. Warsaw 1929, pub. Berlin 1929), and Too True to
be Good (perf. Boston 1932, pub. Berlin 1932).

These plays were published with lengthy prefaces in which Shaw clearly expresses his views as a non-romantic and a
champion of the thinking man. The dramatic conflict in his plays is the conflict of thought and belief, not that of
neurosis or physical passion. Discussion is the basis of the plays, and his great wit and intelligence won audiences over
to the idea that mental and moral passion could produce absorbing dramatic material. He believed that war, disease, and
the present brevity of our lifespan frustrate the Life Force and that functional adaptation, a current of creative
evolution activated by the power of human will, was essential to any real progress, and indeed to the survival of the
species. Shaws unorthodox views, his humour, and his love of paradox have become an institution. Amongst his other
works should be mentioned The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891, revised and expanded 1913), which reveals his debt to
Ibsen as a playwright and presents an argument for Fabian Socialism; The Perfect Wagnerite (1898); Common Sense
About the War (1914); The Intelligent Womens Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928); and Everybodys Political
Whats What (1944). Shaws correspondence with the actresses Ellen Terry and Mrs Patrick Campbell and other letters
have been published in volumes.

In 1898 Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend and they lived together until her death in 1943. He was a strict
vegetarian and never drank spirits, coffee, or tea. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.

49
CANDIDA (1894) (fragment)

ACT III

Candida Oh! I am to choose, am I? I suppose it is quite settled that I must belong to one or the other And pray, my
lords and masters, what have you to offer for my choice? I am up for auction, it seems. What do you bid James?

Morell [Reproachfully.] Cand [He breaks down: his eyes and throat fill with tears: the orator becomes a wounded
animal]. I cant speak

Candida [Impulsively going to him.] Ah, dearest

Marchbanks [In wild alarm.] Stop: its not fair. You mustnt show her that you suffer, Morell. I am on the rack too;
but I am not crying.

Morell [Rallying all his forces.] Yes: you are right. It is not for pity that I am biding. [He disengages himself from
Candida.]

Candida [Retreating, chilled.] I beg your pardon, James: I did not mean to touch you. I am waiting to hear your bid.

Morell [With proud humility.] I have nothing to offer you but my strength for your defence, my honesty for your
surety, my ability and industry for your livelihood, and my authority and position for your dignity. That is all it becomes
a man to offer to a woman.

Candida [Quite quietly.] And you, Eugene? What do you offer?

Marchbanks My weakness. My desolation. My hearts need.

Candida [Impressed.] Thats a good bid, Eugene. Now I know how to make my choice.

[She pauses and looks curiously from one to the other, as if weighing them. Morell, whose lofty confidence has changed
into heartbreaking dread at Eugenes bid, loses all power of concealing his anxiety. Eugene, strung to the highest
tension, does not move a muscle.]

Morell [In a suffocated voice: the appeal bursting from the depths of his anguish.] Candida!

Marchbanks [Aside, in a flash of contempt.] Coward!

Candida [Significantly.] I give myself to the weaker of the two. [Eugene divines her meaning at once: his face
whitens like steel in a furnace.]

Morell [Bowing his head with the calm of collapse.] I accept your sentence, Candida.

Candida Do you understand, Eugene?

Marchbanks Oh, I feel Im lost. He cannot bear the burden.

Morell [Incredulously raising his head and voice with comic abruptness.] Do you mean me, Candida?

Candida [Smiling a little.] Let us sit and talk comfortably over it like three friends. [To Morell.] Sit down, dear.
[Morell, quite lost, takes the chair from the fireside: the childrens chair.] Bring me that chair, Eugene. [She indicates
the easy chair. He fetches it silently, even with something like cold strength, and places it next Morell, a little behind
him. She sits down. He takes the visitors chair himself, and sits, inscrutable. When they are settled she begins, throwing
a spell of quietness on them by her calm, sane, tender tone.] You remember what you told me about yourself, Eugene:
how nobody had cared for you since your old nurse died: how those clever fashionable sisters and successful brothers of
yours were your mothers and fathers pets: how miserable you were at Eton: how your father is trying to starve you
into returning to Oxford: how you have had to live without comfort or welcome or refuge: always lonely, and nearly
always disliked and misunderstood, poor boy!

Marchbanks [Faithful to the nobility of his lot.] I had my books. I had Nature. And at last I met you.

50
Candida Never mind that just at the present. Now I want you to look at this other boy here: my boy! spoiled from his
cradle. We go once a fortnight to see his parents. You should come with us, Eugene, to see the pictures of the hero of
that household. James as a baby! the most wonderful of all babies! James holding his first school prize, won at the ripe
age of eight! James as the captain of his eleven! James in his first frock coat! James under all sorts of glorious
circumstances! You know how strong he is I hope he didnt hurt you how clever he is: how happy [With deepening
gravity.] Ask Jamess mother and his three sisters what it cost to save James the trouble of doing anything but be strong
and clever and happy. Ask me what it cost to be Jamess mother and three sisters and wife and mother to his children all
in one. Ask Prossy and Maria how troublesome the house is even when we have visitors to help us to slice the onions.
Ask the tradesmen who want to worry James and spoil his beautiful sermons who it is that puts them off. When there is
money to give, he gives it: when there is money to refuse, I refuse it. I build a castle of comfort and indulgence and love
for him, and stand sentinel always to keep little vulgar cares out. I make him master here, though he does not know it,
and could not tell you a moment ago how it came to be so. [With sweet irony.] And when he thought I might go away
with you, his only anxiety was what should become of me! And to tempt me to stay he offered me [Leaning forward
to stroke his hair caressingly at each phrase.] his strength for my defence! his industry for my livelihood! his dignity
for my position! his [Relenting.] ah, I am mixing up your beautiful cadences and spoiling them, am I not, darling?
[She lays her cheek fondly against his.]

Morell [Quite overcome, kneeling beside her chair and embracing her with boyish ingenuousness.] Its all true, every
word. What I am you have made me with the labour of your hands and the love of your heart. You are my wife, my
mother, my sisters: you are the sum of all loving care to me.

Candida [In his arms, smiling, to Eugene.] Am I your mother and sisters to you, Eugene?

Marchbanks [Rising with a fierce gesture of disgust.] Ah, never. Out then, into the night with me!

51
 Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 1889)
Gerard Hopkins was born July 28, 1844, to Manley and Catherine (Smith)
Hopkins, the first of their nine children. His parents were High Church
Anglicans (variously described as earnest and moderate), and his father, a
marine insurance adjuster, had just published a volume of poetry the year
before.

At grammar school in Highgate (1854-63), he won the poetry prize for The
Escorial and a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford (1863-67), where his
tutors included Walter Pater and Benjamin Jowett. At one time he wanted to
be a painter-poet like D. G. Rossetti (two of his brothers became professional
painters), and he was strongly influenced by the aesthetic theories of Pater
and John Ruskin and by the poetry of the devout Anglicans George Herbert
and Christina Rossetti. Even more insistent, however, was his search for a
religion which could speak with true authority; at Oxford, he came under the
influence of John Henry Newman. Newman, who had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845,
provided him with the example he was seeking, and in 1866 he was received by Newman into the Catholic Church. In
1867 he won First-Class degrees in Classics and Greats (a rare double-first) and was considered by Jowett to be the
star of Balliol.

The following year he entered the Society of Jesus; and feeling that the practice of poetry was too individualistic and
self-indulgent for a Jesuit priest committed to the deliberate sacrifice of personal ambition, he burned his early poems.
Not until he studied the writings of Duns Scotus in 1872 did he decide that his poetry might not necessarily conflict
with Jesuit principles. Scotus (1265-1308), a medieval Catholic thinker, argued (contrary to the teachings of St. Thomas
Aquinas) that individual and particular objects in this world were the only things that man could know directly, and then
only through the haecceitas (thisness) of each object. With his independently-arrived at idea of inscape thus
bolstered, Hopkins began writing again.

In 1874, studying theology in North Wales, he learned Welsh, and was later to adapt the rhythms of Welsh poetry to his
own verse, inventing what he called sprung rhythm. The event that startled him into speech was the sinking of the
Deutschland, whose passengers included five Catholic nuns exiled from Germany. The Wreck of the Deutschland is a
tour de force containing most of the devices he had been working out in theory for the past few years, but was too
radical in style to be printed.

From his ordination as a priest in 1877 until 1879, Hopkins served not too successfully as preacher or assistant to the
parish priest in Sheffield, Oxford, and London; during the next three years he found stimulating but exhausting work as
parish priest in the slums of three manufacturing cities, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. Late in 1881 he began ten
months of spiritual study in London, and then for three years taught Latin and Greek at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.
His appointment in 1884 as Professor of Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin, which might be expected to be
his happiest work, instead found him in prolonged depression. This resulted partly from the examination papers he had
to read as Fellow in Classics for the Royal University of Ireland. The exams occurred five or six times a year, might
produce 500 papers, each one several pages of mostly uninspired student translations (in 1885 there were 631 failures to
1213 passes). More important, however, was his sense that his prayers no longer reached God; and this doubt produced
the terrible sonnets. He refused to give way to his depression, however, and his last words as he lay dying of typhoid
fever on June 8, 1889, were, I am happy, so happy.

Apart from a few uncharacteristic poems scattered in periodicals, Hopkins was not published during his own lifetime.
His good friend Robert Bridges (1844-1930), whom he met at Oxford and who became Poet Laureate in 1913, served as
his literary caretaker: Hopkins sent him copies of his poems, and Bridges arranged for their publication in 1918.

Even after he started writing again in 1875, Hopkins put his responsibilities as a priest before his poetry, and
consequently his output is rather slim and somewhat limited in range, especially in comparison to such major figures as
Tennyson or Browning. Over the past few decades critics have awarded the third place in the Victorian Triumvirate first
to Arnold and then to Hopkins; now his stock seems to be falling and D.G. Rossettis rising. Putting Hopkins up with
the other two great Victorian poets implies that his concern with the inscape of natural objects is centrally important to
the period; and since that way of looking at the world is essentially Romantic, it further implies that the similarities
between Romantic and Victorian poetry are much more significant than their differences. Whatever we decide Hopkins
poetic rank to be, his poetry will always be among the greatest poems of faith and doubt in the English language.

52

GODS GRANDEUR (1877)
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with
toil;
And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell:
the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright
wings.
SPRING (1877)
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and
lush;
Thrushs eggs look little low heavens, and
thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and
wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they
brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their
fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earths sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with
sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maids child, thy choice and worthy the
winning.
THE WINDHOVER: TO CHRIST OUR LORD
(1877)
I caught this morning mornings minion, king-
dom of daylights dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn
Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and
striding
53
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling
wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skates heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the
hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, the achieve of, the mastery of the
thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume,
here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a
billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down
sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
PIED BEAUTY (1877)
Glory be to God for dappled things
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced fold, fallow and
plough,
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange:
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim.
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE (1881/82)
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung
bells
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Wht I d is me: for that I came.
I say mre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: tht keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in Gods eye what in Gods eye he is
Chrst for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of mens faces.