That small vow I'm glad to register here: it helps somehow, at the
juncture I seem to feel rapidly approaching, to do the indispensable
thing Lorraine is always talking about--to define my position. She's
always insisting that we've never sufficiently defined it--as if I've
ever for a moment pretended we have! We've REfined it, to the last
intensity--and of course, now, shall have to do so still more; which
will leave them all even more bewildered than the boldest definition
would have done. But that's quite a different thing. The furthest we
have gone in the way of definition--unless indeed this too belongs but
to our invincible tendency to refine--is by the happy rule we've made
that Lorraine shall walk with me every morning to the Works, and I
shall find her there when I come out to walk home with me. I see, on
reading over, that this is what I meant by "our" in speaking above of
our little daily heroism in that direction. The heroism is easier, and
becomes quite sweet, I find, when she comes so far on the way with me
and when we linger outside for a little more last talk before I go in.
It's the drollest thing in the world, and really the most precious note
of the mystic influence known in the place as "the force of public
opinion"--which is in other words but the incubus of small domestic
conformity; I really believe there's nothing we do, or don't do, that
excites in the bosom of our circle a subtler sense that we're "au fond"
uncanny.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173