rprised to find that he
had not even sketched the front. He had said, "We shall be able to see
what the elevation looks like when we've decided the plan a bit." And
Edwin saw in a flash that the front of a house was merely the expression
of the inside of it, merely a result, almost accidental. And he was
astounded and disgusted that he, with his professed love of architecture
and his intermittent study of it, had not perceived this obvious truth
for himself. He never again looked at a house in the old irrational
way.

Then, when examining the preliminary sketch-plan, he had put his finger
on a square space and asked what room that was. "That isn't a room;
that's the hall," said Mr Orgreave. "But it's square!" Edwin
exclaimed. He thought that in houses (houses to be lived in) the hall
or lobby must necessarily be long and narrow. Now suddenly he saw no
reason why a hall should not be square. Mr Orgreave had made no
further remark about halls at the time, but another day, without any
preface, he re-opened the subject to Edwin, in a tone good-naturedly
informing, and when he had done Edwin could see that the shape of the
hall depended on the shape of the house, and that halls had only been
crushed and pulled into something long and narrow because the
disposition of houses absolutely demanded this ugly negation of the very
idea of a hall. Again, he had to begin to think afresh, to see afresh.
He conceived a real admiration for Osmond Orgreave; not more for his
original and yet common-sense manner of regarding things, than for his
aristocratic deportment, his equality to every situation, and his
extraordinary skill in keeping his dignity and his distance during
encounters with Darius. (At the same time, when Darius would grumble
savagely that Osmond Orgreave `was too clever by half,' Edwin could not
deny that.) Edwin's sisters got a good deal of Mr Orgreave, through
Edwin; he could never keep Mr Orgreave very long to himself. He gave
away a great deal of Mr Orgreave's wisdom without mentioning the origin
of the gift. Thus occasionally Clara would say cuttingly, "I know where
you've picked that up. You've picked that up from Mr Orgreave." The
young man Benbow to whom the infant Clara had been so queerly engaged,
also received from Edwin considerable quantities of Mr Orgreave. But
the fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful ass, and quite
unable to assimilate Mr Orgreave; Edwin could never compreh