Deadlock : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 6 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Deadlock : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 6
John Stuart Mill · en
of the fireless room was still in the attitude of courteous obeisance;
the happy ease of explaining to the controlledly waiting figure the
impossibility of giving lessons on one’s own language without the
qualification of study; his lifted head, the extraordinary gentleness of
the white, tremulous, determined features, the child-like openness of
the broad forehead, the brilliant gentle deprecating eyes, familiar
handsome unknown kindliness gleaming out between the high arch of rich
black hair and the small black sharply-pointed French beard; the change
in the light of the cold room with the sound of the warm deep voice; the
few well-chosen struggling words; scholarship; that strange sense that
foreigners bring, of knowing and being known, but without the irony of
the French or the plebeianism of Germans and Scandinavians, bringing a
consciousness of being on trial, but without responsibility.....
The trial would bring exposure. Reading and discussion would reveal
ignorance of English literature....
The hour of sitting accepted as a student, talking easily, the right
phrases remembering themselves in French and German, would not come
again; the sudden outbreak of happiness after mentioning Renan .....
_how_ had she suddenly known that he made the Old Testament like a
newspaper? _Parfaitement_; j’ai toujours été fort intéressé dans la
philosophie. After reading so long ago, not understanding at the time
and knowing she would only remember, without words, something that had
come from the pages. Perhaps that was how students learned; reading and
getting only a general impression and finding thoughts and words years
afterwards; but then how did they pass examinations?