Felix Holt the Radical

ses, nor with apples, nor wit

r preaching in the chapel. He stood with a book under his arm, apparently confident that there was some one in the hou

haps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate Felix, into Treby life, had made a welcome epoch to the minister. To talk with this young man, who, though hopeful, had a singularity which some might at once have pronounced heresy, b

would have been disagreeable, and his being a regular lover was out of the question. But it was quite clear that, instead of feeling any disadvantage on his own side, he held himself to be immeasurably her superior: and, what was worse, Esther had a secret consciousness that he was her superior. She was all the more vexed at the suspicion that he thought slightly of her; and wished in her vexation that she could have found more fault with him - that she had not been obliged to admire more and more the varying expressions of his open face and his deliciously good-humoured laugh, always loud at a joke against himself. Besides, she could not help having her cu

r little gold watch, which had cost her nearly a quarter's earnings, visible at her side, her slender fingers playing with a shower of brown curls, and a coronet of shining plaits at the summit of her head, she was a remarkable Cinderella. When the rap came, she coloured, and was going to shut her book and put it out

e ugliness of a hat, and in a poked cap and without a cravat, made a figure at which his mother cried

fore you can see my father. The sermon is not ended yet, and there wi

t down in the kitchen? I

aning it. Pray come in, if you don't mind waiting. I was sitting in the kitchen: the k

agree w

efer the kitchen, and don't want to si

ou might be vexed at seeing me. I wanted to talk to you, but I've got nothing pleasant to say

'Pray be seated. You thought I had no aft

r with his large clear grey eyes, 'and my text is something you said the other day. You said you didn't mind ab

ou say so. I know you are

subjects, and by taste you mean their thoughts about

er, their sensibiliti

nsibility to the way in which lines and figures are related to each other; and I want you to see that the creature who has the sensibilities that you call taste, and n

ct; yet I notice that yo

f littleness. You have enough understanding to make it wicked that you should ad

this speech, yet she disliked it less

at the fire. If it had been any one but Felix who was near her, it might have occurred to her that this attitude sho

unday, for example?' he said, snatching up

el, Mr Holt, and read Howe's Liv

ngs. I distinctly see that I can do something better. I have other princi

uld, to conceal her bitterness. 'I am a lower kin

uled by the thoughts of her father or husband. If not, let her show her power of choosing something better. You must know that your father's principles are greate

But I am not aware that I have e

not cat's flesh. Look here! "Est-ce ma faute, si je trouve partout les bornes, si ce qui est fini n'a pour moi aucune valeur?" Yes, sir, distinctly your fault, because you're an ass. Your dunce who can't do his sums always h

it sets one's teeth on edge.' Esther, smarting helplessly under

alk about. 'You are only happy when you can spy a tag or a tassel loose to tur

a great deal of talk

change. Of course I am a brute to say so. I ought to say you are pe

ige you? By join

e never done that. You don't care to be better than a bird trimming its feathers, and pecking about after what pleases it. You are discontented with the world because you c

she felt that she should be lowering herself by telling him so, and manifesting her anger: in that way she would be confirming his accusation of a littleness that shrank from severe truth; and, besides, through all

of these burning truths. I am sure they

to the petty desires of petty creatures. That's the way those who might do better spend their lives for nought - get checked in every great effort - toil with brain and limb for things that have no more to do with

vibrated through her - was getting almost too much for her self-control. She felt her lips quivering; but her pride, which feared nothing so much

liged to you for giving me

ted with me. I expected it would be so. A wom

ashing out at last. 'That virtue is apt to be easy to people when they only wound oth

liberty if I had tried to drag you back by t

ng is your vocation. It is a pity you sh

nerous mind - that you might be kindled to a better ambition. But

m he took no notice. It was excessively impertinent in him to tell her of his resolving not to love - not to marry - as if she cared about that; as if he thought himself likely to inspire an affection that would incline any woman to marry him after such eccentric steps as he had taken. Had he ever for a moment imagined that she had thought of him in the light of a man who would make love to her? . . . But did he love her one little bit, and was that the reason why he wanted her to change? Esther felt less angry at that form of freedom; though she was quite sure that she did not love him, and that she could never love any one who was so much of a pedagogue and a master, to say nothing of his oddities. But he wanted her to change. For the first time in her life Esther felt herself seriously shaken in her self-contentment. She knew there was a mind to which she appeared trivial, narrow, selfish. Every word Felix had said to her seemed to have burnt itself into her memory.

se. She dried her tears, tried to recove

ead burns!' she said gently, kissing his b

ntaneous tenderness was not quite common

, thinking with wonder of the treasu