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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five, Claire restless went out into the dusk.

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When evening drew on, she who had won him, having

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retired to her chamber. The night was as sultry as

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the day. There was no coolness after dark, unless on

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the grass roads, garden paths, the house fronts. The Barton

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walls were warm as hearths and reflected the noontide temperature

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into the noctambulist's face. He sat in the east gate

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of the dairy yard and knew not what to think

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of himself. Feeling had indeed smothered judgment that day since

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the sudden embrace three hours before the twain had kept apart.

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She seemed stilled, almost alarmed at what had occurred, while

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the novelty, unpremeditation mastery of circumstance disquieted him pulpitating contemplation.

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Being that he was, he could hardly realize their true

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relations to each other as yet, and what their mutual

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bearing should be before third parties. Henceforward, Angel had come

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as pupil to this dairy in the idea that his

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temporary residence here was to be the merest episode in

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his life soon passed through and easily forgotten. He had

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come as to a place from which, as to a

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screened alcove, he could calmly view the absorbing world without

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and apostrophizing it with Walt Whitman, crowds of men and

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women attired in the usual costumes. How curious you are

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to me resolve upon a plan for plunging into that

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world anew But behold, the absorbing scene had been imported.

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Hither what had been the engrossing world had dissolved into

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an uninteresting, outer dumb show. While in this apparently dim

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and impassioned place, novelty had volcanically started up, as it

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had never for him started up elsewhere. Every window of

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the house being open, Claire could hear across the yard,

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each trivial sound of the retiring household, that dairy house,

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so humble, so insignificant, so purely to him, a place

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of constrained sojourn, that he had never hitherto deemed it

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of sufficient importance to be reconnointed as an object of

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any quality whatever in the landscape. What was it now?

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The aged and lichened brick gables breathed forth stay, the

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windows smiled, the door coaxed and beckoned, the creeper blushed confederacy,

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a personality within it was so far reaching in her

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influence as to spread into and make the bricks, mortar

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and whole overhanging sky throb with a burning sensibility. Whose

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was this mighty personality a milkmaid's. It was amazing, indeed

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to find how great a matter the life of the

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obscure dairy had become to him. And though new Love

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was to be held partly responsible for this, it was

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not solely. So. Many besides Angel have learned that the

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magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements,

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but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leaves

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a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.

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Looking at it, thus, he found that life was to

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be seen of the same magnitude here as elsewhere. Despite

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his heterodoxy, faults and weaknesses, Claire was a man of conscience.

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Tess was no insignificant creature to toy with and dismiss,

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but a woman living her precious life, a life which

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to herself who endured or enjoyed it, possessed as great

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a dimension as the life of the mightiest to himself

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upon her sensations. The whole world depended to Tess. Through

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her existence, all her fellow creatures existed to her. The

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universe itself only came into being for Tess on the

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particular day, in the particular year in which she was born.

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This consciousness upon which he had intruded was the single

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opportunity of existence ever vouchsafed to Tess by an unsympathetic

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first cause her all her every and only chance. How then,

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should he look upon her as of less consequence than himself,

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as a pretty trifle to caress and grow weary of,

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and not deal in the great seriousness with the affection

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which he knew that he had awakened in her, so

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fervid and so rationable as she was under her reserve,

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in order that it might not agonize and wreck her.

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To encounter her daily in the accustomed manner would be

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to develop what had begun. Living in such close relations,

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to meet meant to fall into endearment flesh and blood

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could not resist it, And having arrived at no conclusion

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as to the issue of such a tendency, he decided

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to hold aloof for the present from occupations in which

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they would be mutually engaged. As yet, the harm done

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was small, But it was not easy to carry out

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the resolution never to approach her. He was driven towards

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her by every heave of his pulse. He thought he

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would go and see his friends. It might be possible

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to sound them upon this. In less than five months

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his term here would have ended, and after a few

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additional months spent upon other farms, he would be fully

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equipped in agriculture knowledge and in a position to start

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on his own account. Would not a farmer want a wife?

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And should a farmer's wife be a drawing room wax

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figure or a woman who understood farming? Notwithstanding the pleasing

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answer returned to him by the silence, he resolved to

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go his journey. One morning, when they sat down at

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breakfast at Talbethoy's dairy, some maid observed that she had

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not seen anything of mister Clare that day. Oh no,

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said dairyman Crik, mister Clare has gone home to Emminster

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to spend a few days with his kinfolk. For four

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impassioned ones around that table, the sunshine of the morning

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went out at a stroke, and the birds muffled their song.

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But neither girl by word or gesture, revealed her blankness.

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He's getting on towards the end of his tome, wi me,

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added the dairy man, with a phlegm which unconsciously was brutal.

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And so I suppose he is beginning to see about

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his plans elsewhere. How much longer is he to boyd? Here?

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Asked is Hewett, the only one of the gloom stricken

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Bevy who could trust her voice with the question. The

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others waited for the dairy Man's answer, as if their

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lives hung upon it. Retty, with parted lips gazing on

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the tablecloth, Marian with heat added to her redness. Tess

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throbbing and looking out at the meads. Well, I can't

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mind thy exact day without looking at my memorandum book,

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replied Crick, with the same intolerable unconcern. And even that

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may be altered a bit. He'll bowed to get a

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little practice in the carve in out at the stray yard.

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For certain, he lung on to the end of the year,

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I should say, four months or so of torturing ecstasy

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in his society of pleasure, girded about with pain. After that,

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the blackness of unutterable night At this moment of the morning,

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Angel Clare was riding along a narrow lane ten miles

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distance from the Breakfasters, in the direction of his father's

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vicarage at Emminster, carrying as well as he could a

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little basket which contained some black puddings and a bottle

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of mead, sent by Missus Crick with her kind regards

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to his parents. The white lane stretched before him, and

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his eyes were upon it, but they were staring into

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the next year, and not at the lane. He loved her,

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ought he to marry her? Dared he to marry her?

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What would his mother and brothers say? What would he

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himself say in a couple of years after the event?

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That would depend upon whether the germs of staunch comradeship

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underlay the temporary emotion, or whether it were a sensuous

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joy in her form only with no substratum of everlastingness.

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His father's hill surrounded little town, the Tudor church tower

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of red Stone, the clump of trees near the vicarage

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came at last into view beneath him, and he rode

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down towards the well known gate, casting a glance in

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the direction of the church before entering his home. He

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beheld standing by the vestry door a group of girls,

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ages between twelve and sixteen, apparently awaiting the arrival of

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some other one, who in a moment became visible a

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figure somewhat older than the schoolgirls, wearing a broad brimmed

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hat and highly starched cambric morning gown, with a couple

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of books in her hand. Claire knew her well, he

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could not be sure that she observed him. He hoped

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she did not, so as to render it unnecessary that

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he should go and speak to her. Blameless creature that

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she was an overpowering reluctance to greet her made him

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decide that she had not seen him. The young lady

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was Miss Mercy Chant, the only daughter of his father's

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neighbor and friend, whom it was his parents quiet hope

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that he might wed some day. She was great at

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Antiinemanianism and Bible classes, and was plainly going to hold

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a class. Now Claire's mind flew to the impassioned, summer

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steeped heathens of the var Vale, their rosy faces caught

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patched with cow droppings, and to one the most impassioned

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of them all. It was on the impulse of the

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moment that he resolved to trot over to Emminster, and

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hence had not written to apprize his father and mother, aiming, however,

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to arrive about the breakfast hour before they should have

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gone out to their Paris duties. He was a little late,

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and they had already sat down to the morning meal.

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The group at table jumped up to welcome him as

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soon as he entered. They were his father and mother,

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his brother, the Reverend Felix Curate at a town in

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the adjoining county, home for the inside of a fortnight,

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and his other brother, the Reverend Cuthbert, the classical scholar

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and fellow and dean of his college, down from Cambridge

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for the long vacation. His mother appeared in a cap

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and silver spectacles, and his father looked what in fact

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he was an earnest, god fearing man, somewhat gaunt in years,

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about sixty five, his pale face lined with thought and purpose.

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Over their heads hung the picture of Angel's sister, the

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eldest of the family, sixteen years his senior, who had

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married a missionary and gone out to Africa. Old mister

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Clare was a clergyman of a type which within the

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last twenty years has well nigh dropped out of contemporary life.

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A spiritual descendant in the direct line from Wickcliffe Huss

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Luther Calvin, an evangelical of the Evangelicals, a conversionist, a

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man of apostolic simplicity in life and thought. He had

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in his raw youth made up his mind once and

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for all on the deeper questions of existence, and admitted

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no further reasoning on them. Henceforward he was regarded even

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by those of his own date and school of thinking,

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as extreme, while on the other hand, those totally opposed

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to him were unwillingly one to admiration for his thoroughness

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and for the remarkable power he showed in dismissing all

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question as to principles in his energy for applying them.

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He loved Paul of Tarsus, liked Saint John, hated Saint

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James as much as he dared, and regarded with mixed

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feelings Timothy Titus and Philammon. The New Testament was less

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a christiad than a poorlead to his intelligence, less an

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argument than an intoxication. His creed of determinism was such

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that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite a

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man mounted on its negative side, to a remunerative philosophy

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which had cousinship with that of Schoppenhauser and Lopardi. He

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despised the canons and the rubric, swore by the articles,

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and deemed himself consistent through the whole category, which, in

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a way he might have been. One thing. He certainly

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was sincere to the esthetic, sensuous pagan pleasure in natural

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life and lush womanhood which his son Angel had lately

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been experiencing in vole Vail. His temper would have been

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quite antipathetic in a high degree, had he, either by

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inquiry or imagination, been able to apprehend it. Once upon

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a time, Angel had been so unlucky as to say

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to his father, in a moment of irritation, that it

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might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had

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been the source of the religion of modern civilization and

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not Palestine. And his father's grief was of that blank

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Deay inscription, which could not realize that there might lurk

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a thousandth part of a truth, much less a half

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truth or a whole truth. In such a proposition. He

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had simply preached austerely at Angel for some time after,

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But the kindness of his heart was such that he

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never resented anything for long, and welcomed his son to

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day with a smile which was as candidly sweet as

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a child's. Angel sat down, and the place felt like home.

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Yet he did not so much as formerly feel himself

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one of the family gathered there every time that he

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returned hither, he was conscious of this divergence, and since

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he had last shared in the vicarage life, it had

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grown even more distinctly foreign to his own than usual,

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Its transcendental aspirations, still unconsciously based on the geocentric view

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of things, a zenithyl paradise, a nadiral hell, was as

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foreign to his own as if they had been the

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dreams of people on another planet. Latterly, he had seen

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only life, felt only the great passionate pulse of existence, unwarped, uncontorted,

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untrammeled by those creeds which futilely attempt to check what

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wisdom would be content to regulate. On their part, they

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saw a great difference in him, a growing divergence from

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the Angel clear of former times. It was chiefly a

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difference in his manner that they noticed, just now, particularly

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his brothers. He was getting to behave like a farmer.

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He flung his legs about, the muscles of his face

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had grown more expressive, his eyes looked as much information

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as his tongue spoke, and more. The manner of the

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scholar had nearly disappeared. Still more, the manner of the

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drawing room young man. A prig would have said that

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he had lost culture, and a prude that he had

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become core. Such was the contagion of domiciliary fellowship with

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the talbothois, nymphs and swains. After breakfast, he walked with

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his two brothers, non evangelical, well educated, hall marked young men,

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correct to their remotest fiber, such unimpeachable models as are

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turned out yearly by the lathe of a systematic tuition.

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They were both somewhat short sighted, and when it was

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the custom to wear a single eye glass and a string,

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they wore a single eye glass and a string. When

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it was the custom to wear a double glass, they

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wore a double glass. When it was the custom to

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wear spectacles, they wore spectacles straightway, all without reference to

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the particular variety of defect in their own vision. When

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Wordsworth was enthroned, they carried pocket copies, and when Shelley

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was belittled, they allowed him to grow dusty on their shelves.

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When Correggio's holy families were admired, they admired Correggio's holy families.

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When he was decried in favor of Velasquez, they sedulously

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followed suit, without any personal objection. If these two noticed

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angels growing social ineptness, he noticed their growing mental limitations.

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Felix seemed to him all Church, Cuthbert, all College, his

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diocesan synod, and visitations were the mainspring of the world.

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To the one cambridge to the other. Each brother candidly

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recognized that there were a few unimportant scores of millions

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of outsiders in civilized society, persons who were neither university

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men nor churchmen. But they were to be tolerated rather

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than reckoned, with than respected. They were both dutiful and

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attentive sons, and were regular in their visits to their parents. Felix,

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though an offshoot from a far more recent point in

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the devolution of theology than his father, was less self

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sacrificing and disinterested, more tolerant than his father of a

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contradictory opinion in its aspect as a danger to its holder.

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He was less ready than his father to pardon it

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as a slight to his own teaching. Cuthbert was, on

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the whole the more liberal minded, though with a greater subtlety,

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he had not so much heart. As they walked along

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the hillside, Angel's former feeling revived in him that whatever

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their advantages, by comparison with himself, neither sow nor set

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forth life as it really was lived. Perhaps, as with

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many men, their opportunities of observation were not so good

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as their opportunities of expression. Neither had an adequate conception

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of the complicated forces at work outside the smooth and

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gentle current in which they and their associates floated. Neither

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saw the difference between local truth and universal truth. That

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what the inner world said in their clerical and academic

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hearing was quite a different thing from what the outer

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world was thinking. I suppose it is farming or nothing

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for you, now, my dear fellow, Felix was saying, among

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other things, to his youngest brother, as he looked through

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his spectacles at the distant fields with sad austerity. And

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therefore we must make the best of it. But I

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do entreat you to endeavor to keep as much as

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possible in touch with moral ideas. Farming, of course means

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roughing it externally, but high thinking may go with plain living. Nevertheless,

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of course it may, said Angel. Was it not proven

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nineteen hundred years ago? If I made trespass upon your

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domain a little? Why should you think, Felix, that I

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am likely to drop my high thinking and my moral ideals? Well?

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I fancied from the tone of your letters and our conversation,

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it may be fancy only that you were somehow losing

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intellectual grasp. Hasn't it struck you, Cuthbert? Now, Felix said

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Angel dryly. We are very good friends, you know, each

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of us treading our allotted circles. But if it comes

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to intellectual grasp, I think you, as a contented dogmatist,

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had better leave mine alone and inquire at what has

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become of yours. They returned down the hill to dinner,

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which were fixed at any time at which their father's

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and mother's morning work in the parish usually concluded. Convenience,

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as regarded afternoon callers, was the last thing to enter

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into the consideration of selfish mister and Missus Clare. Though

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the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter

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to wish that their parents would conform a little to

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modern notions, the walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular,

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who was now an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse

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d'arpay's in empty of the dairy man somewhat coarsely laden table.

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But neither of the old people had arrived, and it

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was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting

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that their parents entered. The self denying pair had been

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occupied in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners,

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whom they somewhat inconsistently tried to keep imprisoned in the flesh,

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their own appetites being quite forgotten. The family sat down

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to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands was

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deposited before them. Angel looked round for Missus Crick's black puddings,

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which he had directed to be nicely grilled as they

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did them at the dairy, and of which he wished

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his father and mother to appreciate the marvelous herbal savors

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as highly as he did himself. Ah, you are looking

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for the black puddings, my dear boy, observed Claire's mother.

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But I am sure you will not mind doing without them,

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as I am sure your father and I shall not,

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when you know the reason. I suggested to him that

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we should take missus Crick's kind present to the children

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of the man who can earn nothing just now because

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of his tax of delirium tremens. And he agreed that

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it would be a great pleasure to them. So we did,

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of course, said Angel, cheerfully, looking round for the mead.

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I found the mead so extremely alcoholic, continued his mother.

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That it was quite unfit for use as a beverage,

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but as valuable as rum or brandy in emergency. So

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I have put it in my medicine chest. We never

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drink spirits of this table on principle, added his father.

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But what shall I tell the dairyman's wife, said Angel,

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The truth, of course, said his father. I rather wanted

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to say we had enjoyed the mead and the black

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puddings very much. She is a kind, jolly sort of body,

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and is sure to ask me directly. I return, Oh,

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you cannot if we did not, mister Clay answered lucidly.

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Ah No, though that mead was a drop of pretty tipple.

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Oh what said Cuthbert and Felix both Oh tis an

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expression they used down at Talbothay's, replied, Angel blushing. He

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felt that his parents were right in their practice, if

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wrong in their want of sentiment, and said no more.

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End of Chapter twenty five.