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objects of the seashore, I thought their womenfolk rather dreadful. Now, however, the more I see of this household the more I admire Mrs Widger's management of it. I know of few other women who could direct it better and with less friction. Indeed, I am acquainted with no middle-class woman at all who could direct any of these poor men's households as their own wives so noisily and so cleverly do. Mrs Widger does not attempt to gain her own way by sheer force and hardness, not even with the children; she bends to every current; but she never breaks, and finally prevails. Like most West-country people, she has more staying power than visible energy. By going not straight over the hills, like a Roman road, but round by the valleys and level paths, she arrives at her journey's end just as quickly and with much less disturbance and fatigue. She does nothing quite perfectly; neither cooking, mending, cleaning nor child-rearing; but she does everything as well as is practicable, as well as is advisable. Tony would often like things a little better done, but if he had to do them they would be done a little worse. Some people here greatly pride themselves on keeping their homes spotlessly clean, and their front doors locked so that no dirty boot shall soil the oilcloth in the passage. Mrs Widger says that her house is for living in. Children run in and out of it, laughing and shouting. In some respects, she and Tony remind one of a French bourgeois couple. He has the sentiment, the expressed ideality, the sensitiveness. He perceives a great deal, but perceives much of it vaguely. He seldom makes up his mind--then unalterably. He is like the little man in Blake's drawing, who stands at the foot of a long ladder reaching up to the moon, and cries, "I want!" What he wants, he does not precisely know. Summut or other. Mrs Widger, on the other hand, knows what she wants very exactly; so exactly that she is content to bide her opportunity. When they were married, Tony had neither boats nor gear. He has them now. [Sidenote: _A STEADY HEAD_] How she keeps a steady head passes my understanding; at breakfast-time, for example, when the boys are clamouring for their kettle-broth or loudly demanding fish, or trying to sneak lumps of sugar; and the girls, nearly late for school, are asking what she wants from the butcher's or stores; and one or two of them require clean things, or something darned, or have not washed their faces or c
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