rime proposals.
What had come most to characterise the Leweses to my apprehension was
that there couldn't be a thing in the world about which they weren't,
and on the most conceded and assured grounds, almost scientifically
particular; which presumption, however, only added to the relevance of
one's learning how such a matter as their relation with Mrs. Greville
could in accordance with noble consistencies be carried on. I could
trust _her_ for it perfectly, as she knew no law but that of innocent
and exquisite aberration, never wanting and never less than
consecrating, and I fear I but took refuge for the rest in declining all
responsibility. I remember trying to say to myself that, even such as we
were, our visit couldn't but scatter a little the weight of cloud on the
Olympus we scaled--given the dreadful drenching afternoon we were after
all an imaginable short solace there; and this indeed would have borne
me through to the end save for an incident which, with a quite ideal
logic, left our adventure an approved ruin. I see again our bland,
benign, commiserating hostess beside the fire in a chill desert of a
room where the master of the house guarded the opposite hearthstone, and
I catch once more the impression of no occurrence of anything at all
appreciable but their liking us to have come, with our terribly trivial
contribution, mainly from a prevision of how they should more devoutly
like it when we departed. It is remarkable, but the occasion yields me
no single echo of a remark on the part of any of us--nothing more than
the sense that our great author herself peculiarly suffered from the
fury of the elements, and that they had about them rather the minimum of
the paraphernalia of reading and writing, not to speak of that of tea, a
conceivable feature of the hour, but which was not provided for. Again I
felt touched with privilege, but not, as in '69, with a form of it
redeemed from barrenness by a motion of my own, and the taste of
barrenness was in fact in my mouth under the effect of our taking
leave. We did so with considerable flourish till we had passed out to
the hall again, indeed to the door of the waiting carriage, toward which
G. H. Lewes himself all sociably, _then_ above all conversingly, wafted
us--yet staying me by a sudden remembrance before I had entered the
brougham and signing me to wait while he repaired his omission. I
returned to the doorstep, whence I still see him reissue from the room
w