Diana of the Crossways — Volume 3 by George Meredith
page 8 of 118 (06%)
page 8 of 118 (06%)
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day.'
Diana did not promise it. She had her vision of Sir Lukin in his fit of lunacy. 'I am too weak for London now,' Emma resumed. 'I should like to be useful. Is she pleasant?' 'Sprightly by nature. She has worn herself with fretting.' 'Then bring her to stay with me, if I cannot keep you. She will talk of you to me.' 'I will bring her for a couple of days,' Diana said. 'I am too busy to remain longer. She paints portraits to amuse herself. She ought to be pushed, wherever she is received about London, while the season is warm. One season will suffice to establish her. She is pretty, near upon six and twenty: foolish, of course:--she pays for having had a romantic head. Heavy payment, Emmy! I drive at laws, but hers is an instance of the creatures wanting simple human kindness.' 'The good law will come with a better civilization; but before society can be civilized it has to be debarbarized,' Emma remarked, and Diana sighed over the task and the truism. I should have said in younger days, because it will not look plainly on our nature and try to reconcile it with our conditions. But now I see that the sin is cowardice. The more I know of the world the more clearly I perceive that its top and bottom sin is cowardice, physically and morally alike. Lord Larrian owns to there being few heroes in an army. |
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