The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
¡¡¡¡There was a ring of triumph in his voice, and his eyes, clear blue this morning as the sea, were sparkling with light. ¡¡¡¡'You must be well up in mathematics,' I said. 'Where did you go to school?' 'Never saw the inside of one, worse luck,' was the answer. 'I had to dig it out for myself. ¡¡¡¡'And why do you think I have made this thing?
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' he demanded abruptly. 'Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of time?' He laughed one of his horrible mocking laughs. 'Not at all. To get it patented, to make money from it, to revel in piggishness, with all night in while other men do the work. That's my purpose. Also, I have enjoyed working it out.' ¡¡¡¡'The creative joy,' I murmured. ¡¡¡¡'I guess that's what it ought to be called. Which is another way of expressing the joy of life in that it is alive, the triumph of movement over matter, of the quick over the dead, the pride of the yeast because it is yeast and crawls.'

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
and which I really don't know myself that I AM suited for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro continually - and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know where, that can't be very agreeable - and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?' ¡¡¡¡'I don't insinuate at all,' said Peggotty. ¡¡¡¡'You do, Peggotty,' returned my mother. 'You never do anything else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions -' ¡¡¡¡'I never talked of 'em,' said Peggotty. ¡¡¡¡'No, Peggotty,' returned my mother, 'but you insinuated. That's what I told you just now. That's the worst of you. You WILL insinuate. I s
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aid, at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I don't believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty - you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to anybody present - it is

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
solely because he is satisfied that it is for a certain person's benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person's good. He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. And he takes,' said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, 'he takes great pains with me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart,
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and don't know what to do.' ¡¡¡¡Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the fire. ¡¡¡¡'There, Peggotty,' said my mother, changing her tone, 'don't let us fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me.'

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
A little further on was the summit whence Christminster, or what he had taken for that city, had seemed to be visible. A milestone, now as always, stood at the roadside hard by. Jude drew near it, and felt rather than read the mileage to the city. He remembered that once on his way home he had proudly cut with his keen new chisel an inscription on the back of that milestone, embodying his aspirations. It had been done in the first week of his apprenticeship, before he had been diverted from his purposes by an unsuitable woman. He wondered if the inscription were legible still, and going to the back of the milestone brushed
oil paintingaway the nettles. By the light of a match he could still discern what he had cut so enthusiastically so long ago: ¡¡¡¡ THITHER J. F. [with a pointing finger] ¡¡¡¡ The sight of it, unimpaired, within its screen of grass and nettles, lit in his soul a spark of the old fire. Surely his plan should be to move onward through good and ill--to avoid morbid sorrow even though he did see uglinesses in the world? BENE AGERE ET LOETARI-- to do good cheerfully--which he had heard to be the philosophy of one Spinoza, might be his own even now. ¡¡¡¡ He might battle with his evil star, and follow out his original intention.

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
Sweet Nothings
The Abduction of Psyche
The British Are Coming
When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure, she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before; and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dulness of every thing around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a watering place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect.

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
He won't come, sir; he feels badly because you didn't believe him when he said he couldn't tell. I think the shaking hurt his feelings very much.' ¡¡¡¡Jo tried to look pathetic, but must have failed, for Mr. Laurence began to laugh, and she knew the day was won. `I'm sorry for that, and ought to thank him for not shaking me, I suppose. What the dickens does the fellow expect?' and the old gentleman looked a trifle ashamed of his own testiness. ¡¡¡¡`If I were you, I'd write him an apology, sir. He says he won't come down till he has one, and talks about Washington, and goes on in an absurd way. A formal apology will make him see how foolish he is, and bring him down quite amiable. Try it; he likes fun, and this way is better than talking. I'll carry it up, and teach him his duty.' ¡¡¡¡Mr. Laurence gave her a sharp look, and put on his spectacles, saying slowly, `You're a sly puss, but I don't mind being managed by you and Beth. Here, give me a bit of paper, and let us have done with this nonsense.' ¡¡¡¡The note was written in the terms which one gentleman would use to another after offering some deep insult. Jo dropped a kiss on the top of Mr. Laurence's bald head, and ran up to slip the apology under Laurie's door, advising him, through the keyhole, to be submissive, decorous, and a few other agreeable impossibilities. Finding the door locked again, she left the note to do its work, aid was going quietly away, when the young gentleman slid down the banisters, and waited for her at the bottom, saying, with his most virtuous expression of countenance, `What a good fellow you are, Jo! Did you get blown up?' he added, laughing. ¡¡¡¡`No; he was pretty mild, on the whole.'

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
¡¡¡¡ Jude was at that moment in a railway train that was drawing near to Alfredston, oddly swathed, pale as a monumental figure in alabaster, and much stared at by other passengers. An hour later his thin form, in the long great-coat and blanket he had come with, but without an umbrella, could have been seen walking along the five-mile road to Marygreen. On his face showed the determined purpose that alone sustained him, but to which has weakness afforded a sorry foundation. By the up-hill walk he was quite blown, but he pressed on; and at half-past three o'clock stood by the familiar well at Marygreen. The rain was keeping everybody indoors; Jude crossed the green to the church without observation, and found the building open. Here he stood, looking forth at the school, whence he could hear the usual sing-song tones of the little voices that had not learnt Creation's groan. ¡¡¡¡ He waited till a small boy came from the school--one evidently allowed out before hours for some reason or other. Jude held up his hand, and the child came.

The Broken Pitcher

The Broken Pitcher
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
Through the solid barrier of cold cretaceous upland to the northward he was always beholding a gorgeous city--the fancied place he had likened to the new Jerusalem, though there was perhaps more of the painter's imagination and less of the diamond merchant's in his dreams thereof than in those of the Apocalyptic writer. And the city acquired a tangibility, a permanence, a hold on his life, mainly from the one nucleus of fact that the man for whose knowledge and purposes he had so much reverence was actually living there; not only so, but living among the more thoughtful and mentally shining ones therein. ¡¡¡¡ In sad wet seasons, though he knew it must rain at Christminster too, he could hardly believe that it rained so drearily there. Whenever he could get away from the confines of the hamlet for an hour or two, which was not often, he would steal off to the Brown House on the hill and strain his eyes persistently; sometimes to be rewarded by the sight of a dome or spire, at other times by a little smoke, which in his estimate had some of the mysticism of incense. ¡¡¡¡ Then the day came when it suddenly occurred to him that if he ascended to the point of view after dark, or possibly went a mile or two further, he would see the night lights of the city. It would be necessary to come back alone, but even that consideration did not deter him, for he could throw a little manliness into his mood, no doubt.