The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of a Father and SonMeredith, George
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The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of a Father and Son
Meredith, George
Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction
It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions.
"We are at our ease here in excellent society," he wrote to Lady
Blandish. "I am bound to confess that the Huron has a happy fortune,
or a superlative instinct. Blindfold he has seized upon a suitable
mate. She can look at a lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr.
Kitchener, she reads and comments on THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP. The 'Love'
chapter, of course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, '_Drawn
by Reverence and coloured by Love_,' she thinks beautiful, and
repeats it, tossing up pretty eyes. Also the lover's petition:
'_Give me purity to be worthy the good in her, and grant her
patience to reach the good in me._' 'Tis quite taking to hear her
lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the petition! I make her read
me her choice passages. She has not a bad voice.
"The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith, married to
the incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the wits here call him.
Lord Mountfalcon is his cousin, and her--what? She has been trying
to find out, but they have both got over their perplexity, and act
respectively the bad man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a
position in which our young couple found them, and haply diverted
its perils. They had quite taken them in hand. Lady Judith
undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a pretty, modest trick of
frowning and blushing when addressed, and his lordship directs the
exuberant energies of the original man. 'Tis thus we fulfil our
destinies, and are content. Sometimes they change pupils; my lord
educates the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy and
blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted
the hand of her decrepit lord that she might be of potent service to
her fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of her.
"I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to study. I
think it is not without meaning that I am introduced to it by a
yeoman's niece. The language of the two social extremes is similar.
I find it to consist in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and
adjectives. My lord and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my
lord's has lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their
pursuits are identical; but that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim
terms it, _vantage_, and the other has not. Their ideas seem to have
a special relationship in the peculiarity of stopping where they
have begun. Young Tom Blaize with _vantage_ would be Lord
Mountfalcon. Even in the character of their parasites I see a
resemblance, though I am bound to confess that the Hon. Peter
Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by no means noxious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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