 themselves is a love - is it not so? - that seems
to the unwhipped scoffing world to go slinking into basiation's obscurity,
instead of on a glorious march behind the screen. Our hero had a strong
sentiment as to the policy of scorning the world for the sake of defending his
personal pride and (to his honour, be it said) his lady's delicacy.
    The act of scorning put them both above the world, said, retro Sathanas! So
much, as a piece of tactics: he was highly civilized: in the second instance, he
knew it to be the world which must furnish the dry sticks for the bonfire of a
woman's worship. He knew, too, that he was prescribing poetry to his betrothed,
practicable poetry. She had a liking for poetry, and sometimes quoted the stuff
in defiance of his pursed mouth and pained murmur: »I am no poet«; but his
poetry of the enclosed and fortified bower, without nonsensical rhymes to catch
the ears of women, appeared incomprehensible to her, if not adverse. She would
not burn the world for him; she would not, though a purer poetry is little
imaginable, reduce herself to ashes, or incense, or essence, in honour of him,
and so, by love's transmutation, literally be the man she was to marry. She
preferred to be herself, with the egoism of women! She said it: she said: »I
must be myself to be of any value to you, Willoughby.« He was indefatigable in
his lectures on the æsthetics of love. Frequently, for an indemnification to her
(he had no desire that she should be a loser by ceasing to admire the world), he
dwelt on his own youthful ideas; and his original fancies about the world were
presented to her as a substitute for the theme.
    Miss Middleton bore it well, for she was sure that he meant well. Bearing so
well what was distasteful to her, she became less well able to bear what she had
merely noted in observation before: his view of scholarship; his manner toward
Mr. Vernon Whitford, of whom her father spoke warmly; the rumour concerning his
treatment of a Miss Dale. And the country tale of Constantia Durham sang itself
to her in a new key. He had no contempt for the world's praises. Mr. Whitford
wrote the letters to the county paper which gained him applause at various great
houses, and he accepted it, and betrayed a tingling fright lest he should be the
victim of a sneer of the world
