Shirley

by Charlotte Brontë

attentive like, as if she followed him word for word, and all war as clear as a lady’s looking-glass to her een; and all t’ while she’s peeping and peeping out o’ t’ window to see if t’ mare stands quiet; and then looking at a bit of a splash on her riding-skirt; and then glancing glegly round at wer counting-house cobwebs and dust, and thinking what mucky folk we are, and what a grand ride she’ll have just i’ now ower Nunnely Common.

At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sinking into the gulf of religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation.

‘If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them fall into ecstasies with each other’s creations, worshipping the heroine of such a poem — novel — drama, thinking it fine — divine! Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial — false as the rose in my best bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point; if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging

‘Not at all: women read men more truly than men read women.

Now, let me hear the most refined of Cockneys presume to find fault with Yorkshire manners! Taken as they ought to be, the majority of the lads and lasses of the West-Riding are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of them: it is only against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a would-be aristocrat they turn mutinous.

By no means. Shirley is all right.

the scent of mignonette and sweet- briar,

Meantime, John moots doubtful questions about the farming of certain ‘crofts,’ and ‘ings,’ and ‘holms,’

fulgent

shining brightly

She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis; but she bent before the secret power of Robert.

To be so near him — though he was silent — though he did not touch so much as her scarf-fringe, or the white hem of her dress — affected her like a spell.

‘What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they leave?

‘Where is the other world? In what will another life consist?

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.

cushat

a wod pigeon ??

Had Chambers’s Journal existed in those days, it would certainly have formed Miss Helstone’s and Farren’s favourite periodical.

I like your southern accent: it is so pure, so soft. It has no rugged burr, no nasal twang, such as almost every one’s voice here in the north has.

that's interesting

‘Shirley, my woman, if you want to know aught about yond’ James Helstone, I can only say he was a man-tiger. He was handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel’ —

Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly views;

The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman nose apiece.

lol

More exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain young-ladies’-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.; themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical provisions; and they regarded with secret, whispered horror, all deviations in others.

‘Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more than a little pale lameter.’

lameter!

The business — a little letter- writing — was soon despatched after the yard-gates had closed on the carriage: Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden

notice yard gate vs. wicket

but a scantling of apples enriched the trees;

Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.

Such was the bridal-hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale?

summons to luncheon called her

so people are eating luncheon as an established thing, which actually suggests historical inaccuracy since it is supposed to be 1812 or so.

‘Poltroon!’

an utter coward

cuirassed

armor

Thalestris

from Wikipedia: "According to the mythological Greek Alexander Romance, QueenThalestrisof the Amazons brought 300 women to Alexander the Great, hoping to breed a race of children as strong and intelligent as he." Well! That's kind of racy.

but her air never showed less of crânerie;

swagger, showing off