The pumping effort of
bringing out a single sentence in her presence on any abstract topic
was incredible, and so he learned at last to come home, though his
heart and mind were full to bursting, and say nothing more to her
than that he had seen her friend Mrs. Sykes, or bought his tea at a
different shop. On the other hand, the revolutionary literature of
the time, and more particularly Byron, increasingly interested him.
The very wildness and remoteness of Byron's romance was just what
suited him. It is all very well for the happy and well-to-do to talk
scornfully of poetic sentimentality. Those to whom a natural outlet
for their affection is denied know better. They instinctively turn
to books which are the farthest removed from commonplace and are in a
sense unreal. Not to the prosperous man, a dweller in beautiful
scenery, well married to an intelligent wife, is Byron precious, but
to the poor wretch, say some City clerk, with an aspiration beyond
his desk, who has two rooms in Camberwell and who before he knew what
he was doing made a marriage--well--which was a mistake, but who is
able to turn to that island in the summer sea, where dwells Kaled,
his mistress--Kaled, the Dark Page disguised as a man, who watches
her beloved dying:
"Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor sees,
Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,
Held all the light that shone on earth for him.
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