English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
'I shall never forget the walk we 've had. I have to thank you for the
noblest of pleasures. You 've taught me--well, a thousand things; the
things money can't buy. What mornings they were! And the dead-tired
nights! Under the rock and up to see the snowy peak pink in a gap of
thick mist. You were right: it made a crimsoning colour shine like a new
idea. Up in those mountains one walks with the divinities, you said.
It's perfectly true. I shall remember I did. I have a treasure for
life! Now I understand where you get your ideas. The life we lead down
there is hoggish. You have chosen the right. You're right, over and
over again, when you say, the dirty sweaters are nearer the angels for
cleanliness than my Lord and Lady Sybarite out of a bath, in chemical
scents. A man who thinks, loathes their High Society. I went through
Juvenal at college. But you--to be sure, you add example--make me feel
the contempt of it more. I am everlastingly indebted to you. Yes, I
won't forget: you preach against the despising of anything.
This was pleasant in Woodseer's ears, inasmuch as it established the
young nobleman as the pupil of his philosophy for the conduct of life;
and to fortify him, he replied:
'Set your mind on the beauty, and there'll be no room for comparisons.
Most of them are unjust, precious few instructive. In this case, they
spoil both pictures: and that scene down there rather hooks me; though I
prefer the Dachstein in the wane of the afterglow. You called it
Carinthia.'
'I did: the beautiful Gorgon, haggard Venus--if she is to be a girl!'
Fleetwood rejoined. 'She looked burnt out--a spectre.'
'One of the admirably damned,' said Woodseer, and he murmured with
enjoyment: 'Between the lights--that 's the beauty and the tragedy of
Purgatory!'
His comrade fell in with the pictured idea: 'You hit it:--not what you
called the "sublimely milky," and not squalid as you'll see the faces of
the gambling women at the tables below. Oblige me--may I beg?--don't
clap names on the mountains we've seen. It stamps guide-book on them,
English tourist, horrors. We'll moralize over the crowds at the tables
down there. On the whole, it's a fairish game: you know the odds against
you, as you don't on the Turf or the Bourse. Have your fling; but don't
get bitten. There's a virus. I'm not open to it. Others are.'
Hereupon Woodseer, wishing to have his individuality recognised in the
universality it consented to, remarked on an exchequer that could not
afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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