GEORGE'S LETTERS.
Robert Audley did not return to Southampton, but took a ticket for the up town train that left Wareham, and Waterloo Bridge an hour or two after dark. The snow, which had been hard and in Dorsetshire, was a black and in the Waterloo Road, by the of the gin-palaces and the in the butchers' shops.
Robert Audley his as he looked at the through which the Hansom him, the cab-man choosing—with that which in the of vehicles—all those dark and unknown to the ordinary pedestrian.
"What a thing life is," the barrister. "What an boon—what an blessing! Let any man make a of his existence, the hours in which he has been happy—really and at his ease, without one pensée to his enjoyment—without the most cloud to the of his horizon. Let him do this, and surely he will laugh in of when he sets the of his felicity, and the smallness of the amount. He will have himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps. In thirty years of December, and March, and April, and dark November weather, there may have been seven or eight August days, through which the sun has in radiance, and the have balm. How we these days of pleasure, and for their recurrence, and try to plan the that them bright; and arrange, and predestinate, and with for a of the joy. As if any be up out of such and such parts! As if were not accidental—a and bird, in its migrations; with us one summer's day, and gone from us on the next! Look at marriages, for instance," Robert, who was as in the vehicle, for he was to pay a mile, as if he had been a on the wild of the prairies. "Look at marriage! Who is to say which shall be the one selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes! Who shall decide from the of the creature, which is to be the one out of the of snakes? That girl on the yonder, waiting to the when my shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female in this who make me a happy man. Yet I pass her by—bespatter her with the from my wheels, in my ignorance, in my to the hand of fatality. If that girl, Clara Talboys, had been five minutes later, I should have left Dorsetshire her cold, hard, and unwomanly, and should have gone to my with that mistake part and parcel of my mind. I took her for a and automaton; I know her now to be a and woman. What an this may make in my life. When I left that house, I out into the winter day with the of all of the of George's death. I see her, and she me upon the path—the by-way of and suspicion. How can I say to this sister of my friend, 'I that your has been murdered! I that I know by whom, but I will take no step to set my at rest, or to my fears'? I cannot say this. This woman my secret; she will soon herself of the rest, and then—and then—"
The stopped in the of Robert Audley's meditation, and he had to pay the cabman, and submit to all the of life, which is the same we are or sorry—whether we are to be married or hung, to the woolsack, or by our on some of wrong-doing, which is a social to those the of the Middle Temple.
We are to be angry with this in our life—this in the smaller and of the machine, which no or cessation, though the be hollow, and the hands pointing to on a dial.
Who has not felt, in the of sorrow, an against the mute of chairs and tables, the of Turkey carpets, the of the of existence? We want to up trees in a forest, and to tear their in our grasp; and the that we can do for the of our is to over an easy-chair, or a shillings' of Mr. Copeland's manufacture.
Madhouses are large and only too numerous; yet surely it is they are not larger, when we think of how many must their against this of the world, as with the and tempest, the and within—when we how many minds must upon the narrow and unreason, to-day and to-morrow, yesterday and to-day.
Robert Audley had the to him at the of Chancery Lane, and he the brilliantly-lighted leading to the dining-saloon of The London, and seated himself at one of the tables with a of and weariness, than any of healthy hunger. He had come to the eating-house to dine, it was necessary to eat something somewhere, and a great to a very good dinner from Mr. Sawyer than a very one from Mrs. Maloney, mind ran in one narrow of and steaks, only by small and in the way of "broiled sole" or "boiled mack'-rill." The waiter in to Robert to a proper of the of the dinner question. He something to the that the man might him anything he liked, and the waiter, who Robert as a guest at the little tables, to his master with a face, to say that Mr. Audley, from Figtree Court, was out of spirits. Robert ate his dinner, and a of Moselle; but he had of the of the or the of the wine. The still on, and the of the modern was the modern question of the of everything, and the of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road that nowhere, or to a work that meant nothing.
"I accept the of that girl, with the and the eyes," he thought. "I the power of a mind to my own, and I to it, and to it. I've been acting for myself, and for myself, for the last months, and I'm of the business. I've been false to the leading of my life, and I've for the folly. I two in my the week last, and an has planted a of his under my right eye. Yes, I'm old upon the right side; and why—why should it be so?"
He pushed away his plate and his eyebrows, at the upon the damask, as he the question.
"What the am I doing in this galere?" he asked. "But I am in it, and I can't out of it; so I submit myself to the brown-eyed girl, and do what she tells me and faithfully. What a to life's there is in government! Man might in the sunshine, and eat lotuses, and it 'always afternoon,' if his wife would let him! But she won't, her and active mind! She than that. Who of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken? Instead of supporting it as an nuisance, only by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a or a procession. She for it, and and grins, and for it. She her neighbors, and for a good place in the march; she elbows, and writhes, and tramples, and to the one end of making the most of the misery. She up early and up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying. She her husband on to the woolsack, or him into Parliament. She him full at the dear, lazy of government, and and him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until somebody, for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted him to be made. That's why men sometimes in high places, and their poor, the to be done and the people that can do them, making in the of well-placed incapacity. The square men in the are pushed into them by their wives. The Eastern who that were at the of all mischief, should have gone a little and why it is so. It is are lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joans of Arc, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharines the Second, and they in battle, and murder, and and desperation. If they can't the and play at with hemispheres, they'll make of and out of molehills, and social in teacups. Forbid them to upon the of nations and the of mankind, and they'll with Mrs. Jones about the shape of a or the of a small maid-servant. To call them the is to a mockery. They are the sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want of opinion, of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators—anything they like—but let them be quiet—if they can."
Mr. Audley pushed his hands through the thick of his hair, and the dark in his despair.
"I women," he thought, savagely. "They're bold, brazen, creatures, for the and of their superiors. Look at this of George's! It's all woman's work from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father him off and professionless. He of the woman's death and he his heart—his good honest, heart, a of the of self-interest and which in women's breasts. He goes to a woman's house and he is alive again. And now I myself into a by another woman, of I had until this day. And—and then," Mr. Audley, irrelevantly, "there's Alicia, too; she's another nuisance. She'd like me to her I know; and she'll make me do it, I say, she's done with me. But I'd much not; though she is a dear, bouncing, thing, her little heart."
Robert paid his bill and the waiter liberally. The was very to his little among the people who him, for he his to all in the universe, to the of pounds, and pence. Perhaps he was in this, as you may that the who calls life an empty is in the investment of his moneys, and the nature of India bonds, Spanish certificates, and Egyptian scrip—as with the painful of an Ego or a non-Ego in metaphysics.
The rooms in Figtree Court in their to Robert Audley upon this particular evening. He had no for his French novels, though there was a packet of romances, and sentimental, ordered a month before, waiting his upon one of the tables. He took his and into his chair with a sigh.
"It's comfortable, but it so to-night. If George were opposite to me, or—or George's sister—she's very like him—existence might be a little more endurable. But when a fellow's by himself for eight or ten years he to be company."
He out laughing presently as he his pipe.
"The idea of my of George's sister," he thought; "what a I am!"
The next day's post him a in a but hand, which was to him. He the little packet on his breakfast-table, the warm French roll in a by Mrs. Maloney's but dirty hands. He the for some minutes opening it—not in any wonder as to his correspondent, for the the of Grange Heath, and he that there was only one person who was likely to to him from that village, but in that lazy which was a part of his character.
"From Clara Talboys," he slowly, as he looked at the clearly-shaped of his name and address. "Yes, from Clara Talboys, most decidedly; I a to George's hand; than his, and more than his, but very like, very like."
He the over and the seal, which his friend's familiar crest.
"I wonder what she says to me?" he thought. "It's a long letter, I say; she's the of woman who would a long letter—a that will me on, drive me forward, me out of myself, I've no doubt. But that can't be helped—so here goes!"
He open the with a of resignation. It nothing but George's two letters, and a on the flap: "I send the letters; and return them—C.T."
The letter, from Liverpool, told nothing of the writer's life his of starting for a new world, to the that had been in the old. The almost after George's marriage, a full of his wife—such a as a man only three of a love match—a in which every was catalogued, every of or of upon, every of manner depicted.
Robert Audley read the three times he it down.
"If George have for what a purpose this would when he it," the barrister, "surely his hand would have by horror, and powerless to shape one of these words."
