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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Did I preach this to poor Fanny ? No ; exhausted , cast down with past terror , feeling the refluent truths that she could not have formalized , utterly bris 4 e , she covered her face with her hands , as I put her into the coach , and cried , ' * Oh ! what a wretch I am ! " She seemed to hate her acquittal , and to hate still worse the comfortable bewigged bully who had pleaded against justice for her child ; for never before had she fejt the revulsion of her crime as she did when all risk for herself was gone . It is not the fear of hanging that protects the child in the mother ' s arms ; although that is the motive which the law selects as its fulcrum !
Kindly was Fanny treated ; and by whom ? By that excellent Mrs . Hartnell , whose own life had passed , thus far , without a deviation or a cross , an even course of happiness and purity . Her unperverted mind could distinguish at once between the suffering and the wrong ; and she consoled the sufferer without extenuation of the crime . She would have cared for the castaway ; but she showed me , what surprised me , a letter to herself from Yseult Edwardes , urgently claiming to have charge of Fanny as her own servant . Yseult had never accustomed herself to depend upon a lady ' smaid , though Edwardes had urged her ; but now , she said , she yielded to his wish , and had his sanction for appointing Fanny to that office . I took her back with me to Seven Hills .
That day—it was Wednesday last—there was a marked change in Yseult ' s manner , and next day , when Edwardes joined us , it was yet stranger . He came in after dinner , and instead of receiving him as she was accustomed , she seemed to be almost irritated at his interrupting the conversation . Her face was flushed ; and without losing the melancholy aspect now become habitual , it was angry . The topic was an unlucky one . I do not know how the conversation began , but it had wandered somehow from Fanny Chetham ' s trial to the Essex poisonings ; and Yseult had said that she could imagine cases in which a woman , bound to be a wife to a
man whom she did not love , might resort to any means as an escape . This was a sore point with Edwardes , who had always upheld the doctrine , that a woman married to a man is bound to serve him as a wife , for the purpose mentioned in the marriage service . Edwardes goes to church , and is a decent " member of the Church of England ; " but if you were to quote the Book of Common Prayer in any practical affair of life , he would , like many other members of the Church of England , laugh in your face .
Yseult appeared to be excited beyond any apparent cause ; and she proclaimed , with flushed cheek and quivering lip , and an emotion trembling between grief and anger , that no man ought to expect love from a woman , on whatsoever plea , unless real love exist between them—unless they are "in love" with each other . I was silent , until Julie , who had been half playfully challenged to give judgment by Markham , petulantly declared that no man ought to " expect " anything at all ; and she asked me if I had not taught her so .
I answered her in a general phrase , — " None but the eyes of love ought to see the emotions of love . That love is desecrated which prostrates itself before the eye of indifference ; and it is tyranny of the most intolerable kind to " I hardly know what doubt as to my hearers made me leave the sentence unfinished ; but what I meant was supplied by Yseult ; who said— " If Buoklaw had been a perfect gentleman , he would have known that to make a woman the reluctant wife ' of a man to whom her heart is strange—to compel submission to anything but love itself , is a crime—yes , a crime worse , far worse , than murder ; for it is misery , shame , and revulsion ; and rather than undergo it , any woman who is awakened to a sense of her own honour , would rescue herself , —as Lucy Ashton did . "
There was a painful silence , in the midst of which Yseult rose and walked into the garden . Presently , with a grave and saddened countenance which I could not interpret , Edwardes followed her ; and they were seen walking together in the grounds . YBeult came back alone , and we have not seen Edwardes since . After what passed at the inn where Margaret first lay wounded , his not returning that night did not surprise me , nor did it seem quite to astonish any of uh ; except Yseult , who was manifestly uneasy . But he did not return next
day ; and enquiries in town satisfied Markham that he had not been heard of there . How the fact got abroad I do not know ; but there was a . systematic search for him throughout the district ; and , at last , another Magistrate came over to Seven Hills , and several of the people were " examined , " Yseult among the rest ; ami policemen remain in the house , with the unconcealed intention of gaining information and of watching Yseult . Her bearing increases the mystery—she is utterly passive ; explains nothing , listens , acquiesces in whatever Margaret suggests , and seems to endurewithout un effort , as if she had ceased to cure .
Not a soul has expressed any definite suspicion . The very policemen share the respectful compassion with which she is regarded by the servants , whose gossiping probably brought " the Law" amongst us . She remains all the time in her own dressing-room , unvisited save by Julie and Margaret . 1 pass the door occasionally , almost surprised to see its panels unchanged by the sense of the sorrow within . We arc ? mostly silent ; but the broken conversation glances at the unconscious subject of our thoughts . A thousand things recall every strange expression of that lust evening . Une amongst us alone remains quite unchanged—more silent perhaps , more unbroken in gravity , but not downcast : Margaret ' s whole , manner is a rebuke to those who draw inferences hastily , or can suffer any doubt of
Yseult to enter into their minds . If I had never loved Margaret before , I should have done so now , with her steadfast trust in her friend . But I must break off—Margaret has come to fetch me to Yseult ; who has sent for me .
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THE ABIDING AND THE FLEETING . FROM GOETHE . Ea . rly joys , how false and fleeting ! Vanishing within the hour : Envious , murky west-winds beating , Come and wither every flower . Can I in the verdure gladden , Casting now its grateful shade , Which the autumn storms must sadden , And whose fairest leaves must fade . Seekest thou life ' s fruits to win ? Quickly snatch the moment ' s share ! These to ripen will begin , Let the others blossom there . Think ! thy vale , of joy the giver , Changes with each shower of rain ; In the same transparent river Thou wilt never bathe again . Thou thyself art ever changing ! Forms that now before thee rise , Palaces and walls high ranging , Thou behold ' st with other eyes . Vanished are the lips that gladly Once bestowed love ' s fond embrace , And the foot that boldly , madly Trod the hunter ' s mountain chase . And the hand that for thy brother Nobly worked in weal and woe . Everything is now another , Swift they come and noiseless go * All the form that bears thy name , Standing now where thou hast stood , Like a wave of ocean came And rejoins its native flood . To beginning let completion Follow in harmonious rhyme ; Let thy spirit ' s swift fruition Yet outstrip the flight of time . Gifts for aye thou may ' st inherit , Mortal of the Muses blest ! The ideal before thy spirit , The reward within thy breast . F . M . W .
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PASSION WEEK AMUSEMENTS . " How Cockaigne keeps Easter , " our readers were told last year , in a witty article borrowed from the Times . How Londoners , determined to find amusement , are compelled to seek it during- the week before Easter , let the bills of the week tell ; for though it is neither fair nor safe to judge every performance from the programme , there are programmes of irresistible conclusion . There was the voluminous bill of a new " Uncle Tom" entertainment , somewhere east . This promised a series of dioramie views , accompanied with a descriptive lecture and songs . Tho songs had been expressly written and composed by the veteran author of 100 , 000 favourite ballads . You are familiar with the charm of this poet ' s expression , conveyed in a single ballad ; what must it be when lie gets an order for a dozen ! The sweetness of one song stirred into twelve ! Then there
was the lively bill of Mr . Adams ' s Orrery , " combining amusement with instruction , " and sublimely indifferent to the discoveries of colossal tolescopes , at the Adelphi Theatre . And there were the great yellow posters of " the original Maniac , " Mr . Henry ' . Russell , on the doors of the Strand Theatre . In fact , the only agreeable changes wo observed in the aspect of the playbills , were the two eases of the Surrey and Olympic . Concerts , including soveral attractive selections , and , on the whole , well supported , have boon given at both these houses ; and the accounts mako people with insatiable appetites for " tunes" regret that they stayed away . It iscomfortablo to know that one can still hear a song , even during 1 atunon Week , without " appropriate introductory remarks . " Suppose a person m private company were asked to sing , and he began with reading a page or two fino ho would not
from the Modern Plutarch ; if ho had ever so a vo . ee be asked any more . Why , then , do we , who efleofcuaUy scout flu . stupid system of « ' combining instruction with amusement , in private hfe , tolerate , even for a dozen days in U >« yoar , tho same thing m pubic Y Hut this is only one absurdity within another ; if indeed , that other bo not too serious for such a name . We have tins week been struggling , in the clumsiest manner , to adapt a religious observance the most solemn lust in tho calendar , bo it ronu . iub . Mvd—to reconcile it somehow with our ordinary habits of amusement . At any rate , to forego as httlo ot the one as might seem to suit with a decent recognition ot tho othor ( lor if we did not mean , by changing the diameter of our amusements , to recogmao tho solemnity oi tho week , tho change wuh un umuoiiuiiig one ) . Next wook V
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' m March 26 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 309
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 26, 1853, page 309, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1979/page/21/
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