Dorset (England) -- Fiction; Illegitimate children -- Fiction; Textile industry -- Fiction
It is a quality of small minds rather than of great to remain unchanged.
They fossilise more quickly, are more concentrated, have a power to
freeze into a mould and preserve it against the teeth of time, or the
wit and wisdom of the world. The result is ugly or beautiful, according
to the emotion thus for ever embalmed. The loves of such people are
intuitive--shared with instinct and above, or below, reason; their hate
is similarly impenetrable--preserved in a vacuum. For only a vacuum can
hold the sweet for ever untainted, or the bitter for ever unalloyed.
Mary Dinnett belonged to this order. She was now dead, and concerning
the legacy of her unchanging attitude more will presently appear.
As for Nelly Northover, she had long been the wife of Mr. Job Legg. That
pertinacious man achieved his end at last, and what his few enemies
declared was guile, and his many friends held to be tact, won Nelly to
him a year after her adventure with Mr. Gurd. None congratulated them
more heartily than the master of 'The Tiger.' Indeed, when 'The Seven
Stars' blazed out anew on an azure firmament--the least of many changes
that refreshed and invigorated that famous house--'The Tiger' also shone
forth in savage splendour and his black and orange stripes blazed again
from a mass of tropical vegetation.
And beneath the inn signs prosperity continued to obtain. Mr. Gurd grew
less energetic than of yore, while Mrs. Legg put on much flesh and daily
perceived her wisdom in linking Job for ever to the enterprise for which
she lived. He became thinner, if anything, and Time toiled after him in
vain. Immense success rewarded his innovations, and the tea-gardens of
'The Seven Stars' had long become a feature of Bridport's social life.
People hinted that Mr. Legg was not the meek and mild spirit of ancient
opinion and that Nelly knew it; but this suggestion may be held no more
than the penalty of fame--an activity of the baser sort, who ever drop
vinegar of detraction into the oil of content.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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