Could Raphael Paint Madonnas The Week Of
His Betrothal?
Did Thackeray write a chapter the day his daughter
was born?
Did Plato philosophise freely when he was in love? Were
there interruptions in the world's great revolutions, histories,
dramas, reforms, poems, and marbles when their creators fell for a
brief moment under the spell of the little blind tyrant who makes
slaves of us all? It must have been so. Your chronometer heart, on
whose pulsations you can reckon as on the procession of the
equinoxes, never gave anything to the world unless it were a system
of diet, or something quite uncoloured and unglorified by the
imagination.
Chapter XX. A canticle to Jane.
There are many donkeys owned in these nooks among the hills, and
some of the thriftier families keep donkey-chairs (or 'cheers,' as
they call them) to let to the casual summer visitor. This vehicle
is a regular Bath chair, into which the donkey is harnessed. Some
of them have a tiny driver's seat, where a small lad sits beating
and berating the donkey for the incumbent, generally a decrepit
dowager from London. Other chairs are minus this absurd coachman's
perch, and in this sort I take my daily drives. I hire the
miniature chariot from an old woman who dwells at the top of Gorse
Hill, and who charges one and fourpence the hour, It is a little
more when she fetches the donkey to the door, or when the weather is
wet or the day is very warm, or there is an unusual breeze blowing,
or I wish to go round the hills; but under ordinary circumstances,
which may at any time occur, but which never do, one and four the
hour. It is only a shilling, if you have the boy to drive you; but,
of course, if you drive yourself, you throw the boy out of
employment, and have to pay extra.
It was in this fashion and on these elastic terms that I first met
you, Jane, and this chapter shall be sacred to you! Jane the long-
eared, Jane the iron-jawed, Jane the stubborn, Jane donkeyer than
other donkeys, - in a word, MULIER! It may be that Jane has made her
bow to the public before this. If she has ever come into close
relation with man or woman possessed of the instinct of self-
expression, then this is certainly not her first appearance in
print, for no human being could know Jane and fail to mention her.
Pause, Jane, - this you will do gladly, I am sure, since pausing is
the one accomplishment to which you lend yourself with special
energy, - pause, Jane, while I sing a canticle to your character.
Jane is a tiny - person, I was about to say, for she has so strong an
individuality that I can scarcely think of her as less than human -
Jane is a tiny, solemn creature, looking all docility and decorum,
with long hair of a subdued tan colour, very much worn off in
patches, I fear, by the offending toe of man.
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