Moth and Rust; Together with Geoffrey's Wife and The Pitfall

ve, O passio

und the

Hepta

n a mother, or Evelina, or Jane Eyre, or Diana of the Crossways, or Aurora Leigh? Dear Elizabeth Bennett certainly had one whom we shall not quickly forget-but Elizabeth is an exception. She only proves the rule for the majority of hero

reader denuded of both parents, and domiciled under the roof of a brother who was not only di

gleam of culture, even in its crudest forms, without a spark of refined affection. Nevertheless her life grew up white and clean in it, as a hyacinth will build its fragrant bell tower in the window of a tavern, in a stale atmosphere of smoke and beer and alcohol. Janet was self-contained as a hyacinth. She unfolded from within. She asked no questions of life. That she h

imple religion which she followed blindfold. She expected little of others, and exacted nothing. She had, of course, had lovers in plenty. She wished to be married and to have children-many children. In her quiet ruminating mind she had names ready for a family of ten. But unt

know what Janet can have meant by culture, but years later, when she had picked up words like "culture" and "development," and scattered them across her conversation, she told me he had represented all these glories to her. And he

a considerable depth; a spring not even to be poisoned by her brother's outrageous delight at the enga

pull it off, Janet. I thought he was too big a fish to

aguely supposed she should some day "queen it" at Easthope. The expression did not offend her. The reflection in her mind wa

e, she felt her cup was full. She looked at her affianced George with shy adoration f

d mainly to an occasional ejaculation, h

h one consent across the smoo

s," said George, wit

below the rose garden, where the eager brook ran through a grating, making a

d George, poin

said

a three-

es

the stream

as not stood once in silence in the June sunshine with her lover, and watched him pick for her a red rose which is not as other roses, a rose which understands? Amid all the world of roses, did the raiment of Go

he put his arm round her, and drew

y assenting to him in everything. And they leaned together by the

vers and a rose? Have we not seen such groups portraye

commonplace if Love bu

cture-book, where it opens

e little bridge across the trout stream. She had left Mrs Trefusis composed into a resigned na

ied woman of the world, threw herself dow

anacled under our eyes, and then goad it back to its cell again. But is it ever anything but a caged Arab of the desert, a wild fierce priso

too difficult or too beautiful for us! How we fling ourselves upon her breast, upon her solitude, finding courage to encounter joy, insight

n that. Tears are for the young. She hid her convulsed fa

s there to be no reprieve from the invasion of this one thought? Was there no escape from this man? Was not her old friend the robin on his side? The meadowsweet feathered the hedgerow. The white clover was in the grass, together with the li

r Anne to herself, with somet

lked in dry places, seeking rest and finding none. But has any out