Now her only hope was that
liberal-minded woman, Miss Mergle, who, a year ago, had sent her
out, highly educated, into the world. Miss Mergle had told her at
parting to live fearlessly and truly, and had further given her a
volume of Emerson's Essays and Motley's "Dutch Republic," to help
her through the rapids of adolescence.
Jessie's feelings for her stepmother's household at Surbiton
amounted to an active detestation. There are no graver or more
solemn women in the world than these clever girls whose
scholastic advancement has retarded their feminine coquetry. In
spite of the advanced tone of 'Thomas Plantagenet's' antimarital
novel, Jessie had speedily seen through that amiable woman's
amiable defences. The variety of pose necessitated by the corps
of 'Men' annoyed her to an altogether unreasonable degree. To
return to this life of ridiculous unreality--unconditional
capitulation to 'Conventionality' was an exasperating prospect.
Yet what else was there to do? You will understand, therefore,
that at times she was moody (and Mr. Hoopdriver respectfully
silent and attentive) and at times inclined to eloquent
denunciation of the existing order of things. She was a
Socialist, Hoopdriver learnt, and he gave a vague intimation that
he went further, intending, thereby, no less than the horrors of
anarchism. He would have owned up to the destruction of the
Winter Palace indeed, had he had the faintest idea where the
Winter Palace was, and had his assurance amounted to certainty
that the Winter Palace was destroyed.
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