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