The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 3Meredith, George
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The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 3
Meredith, George
Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Fathers and sons -- Fiction
"Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded women," said the
baronet. "No! you are both looking at the wrong end. Between a highly-
cultured being, and an emotionless animal, there is all the difference in
the world. But of the two, the doctor is nearer the truth. The healthy
nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for organization he would be right
altogether. To feel, but not to feel to excess, that is the problem."
"If I can't have the one I chose,
To some fresh maid I will propose,"
Adrian hummed a country ballad.
CHAPTER XXIV
When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him onward, he
was in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only a strong fist
had knocked him down and stunned him, and he opened his eyes to a grey
world: he had forgotten what he lived for. He was weak and thin, and
with a pale memory of things. His functions were the same, everything
surrounding him was the same: he looked upon the old blue hills, the far-
lying fallows, the river, and the woods: he knew them, they seemed to
have lost recollection of him. Nor could he find in familiar human faces
the secret of intimacy of heretofore. They were the same faces: they
nodded and smiled to him. What was lost he could not tell. Something
had been knocked out of him! He was sensible of his father's sweetness
of manner, and he was grieved that he could not reply to it, for every
sense of shame and reproach had strangely gone. He felt very useless.
In place of the fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to
all.
Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Primrose, and while it
died another heart was pushing forth the Primrose of Autumn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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