Love in Idleness: A Bar Harbour TaleCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
General
Love in Idleness: A Bar Harbour Tale
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Bar Harbor (Me.) -- Fiction; Love stories
Moreover, what is called nowadays analysis of human nature, belongs
in reality to transcendental thought. 'Transcendent' is defined as
designating that which lies beyond the bounds of all possible
experience. So far as we know, it is beyond those bounds to enter
into the intelligence of our neighbour, subjectively, to identify
ourselves with him and to see and understand the world with his eyes
and mind. It follows that we are never sure of what we are doing
when we attempt to set down exactly another man's train of thought,
and it follows also that few are willing to recognize the result as
at all resembling the process of which they are conscious within
themselves. On certain bases, all men can appeal subjectively to all
men, and all women to all women. But, as between the sexes, all
observation is objective and tentative, whether it be that of the
author, condemned to analyze a woman's character, or that of the man
in love and attempting to understand the woman he loves.
And further, if we could see--as it is pretended by some that we can
see on paper--precisely what is taking place in the intelligence of
those we meet in the world, our friends would be as unrecognizable to
us as a dissected man is unrecognizable for a human being except in
the eyes of a doctor. The soul, laid bare, dissected, and turned
inside out, with real success, would not be recognized by its dearest
friend, were it ever so truthful a soul. We are all fundamentally
and totally incapable of expressing exactly what we feel, and as we
have no means of conveying truth without some sort of expression, we
are helpless and are all more or less hopelessly misunderstood--a
fact to which, if we please, we may ascribe that variety which is
proverbially said to be the charm of life. Doubtless, this is a
literary heresy; but it is a human truth a little above literature.
Lawrence had never attempted to write a book, but as he sat on the
slope above the Otter Cliff road, drawing trees, it did not occur to
him to draw a picture of what he thought about the inside of each
tree, instead of a representation of what he saw. But he made the
usual fruitless attempt to understand the woman he loved, and to
reason about her, and failed to do either, which is also usual. The
conclusion he reached was that he loved her, of which he had been
aware before he had set himself to think it out.
What he saw was a strong girl's face with cool, inscrutable grey eyes
that never took fire and gleamed, nor ever turned dull and vacant.
Their unchanging steadiness contradicted the wayward speech, the
sudden capricious confidence, even the gay laugh, sometimes.
Lawrence had a lively impression that whatever Fanny said or did, she
never meant but one thing, whatever that might be. And with this
impression he was obliged to content himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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