Milsom

“ Milsom's eighth that you speak so cheerfully of its early demise? It can't be more than ten days old at the most, for it certainly seems no time since a cradle jumping out of the fire announced its undesired arrival. Think of the poor mother's feelings. Mothers as a race have an unfortunate tendency to value their offspring, even when, as in this case, the supply exceeds the demand."
Mrs. Palling seemed rather doubtful as to whether Isabella was not, in her own phraseology, making game of her, for she was silent for a moment, and then repeated positively—
"That were a coffin, sure enough. ”

“ He decided that night that he would write a story about Millstead; that he would do for Millstead what other people had already done for Eton and Harrow and Rugby. He would put down all the magic that he had seen and felt; he would transfer to paper the subtle enchantment of the golden summer days, the moonlit nights, the steamy warmth of the bathrooms, the shouting in the dormitories, the buzz of movement and conversation in the dining hall, the cool gloom of the chapel—everything that came effortlessly into his mind whenever he thought of Millstead. ”

“ New neighbors did not grow on every bush. Topics were scarce in Milltown, and every new one was hunted down like a stray plum in a boarding-school pudding. Yes, you might have gone further, and found worse people than the Milltown-ites. The little sun-burnt children learned to loiter on their way to school, “to pick a nosegay for the pretty pale lady.” Widow Ellis, under the hill, picked her biggest strawberries, and put them in a tempting little basket, covered with green leaves, for her curly-pated Tommy to carry to “poor Miss Mary.” ”

“ The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived," she suddenly said.
The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's affection—to another. ”

“ When sure that she was gone, Oliver placed a hand on each side of the face bending over him, and said:
“Don’t thank me, Mildred; I don’t deserve it, for my first wicked thought was to let him drown, but when I remembered how much you loved him, I said I’ll save him for Milly, even though I die. It is far better that the poor cripple should be drowned than the handsome Lawrence. Do you love me more for saving him, Milly?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Mildred; “and so does Lilian, or she will when I tell her, for you know you saved him for her, not for me.” ”

“ Mildred asked, joining them.
"Of Fan, Milly; she hasn't seemed well for some time, and I have been consulting the doctor about her."
Mildred's eyes filled. "My darling little sister!" she exclaimed. "I hope it is nothing serious?" She turned an eager, inquiring look upon her husband.
[Pg 65]
"We will hope not, Milly," he said cheerfully. "As your father says, she is growing fast, and, besides, this warm spring weather is apt to cause a feeling of languor. I trust that with tender care and watchfulness we may be able to help her to grow into strong, healthful womanhood." ”

“ Milly and Oliver lived at Willingham, a little town in Oxfordshire, as I have already told you. Their father was a doctor, and they lived in an old-fashioned house, in a street, with a long shady garden stretching away behind it. Milly and Oliver loved their father, and whenever he put his brown face inside the nursery door, two pairs of little feet went running to meet him, and two pairs of little hands pulled him eagerly into the room. ”

“ Waymarsh fairly looked up at him as from the foot of them. “I don’t know as I ought really to go.”
It was the conscience of Milrose in the very voice of Milrose, but, oh it was feeble and flat! Strether suddenly felt quite ashamed for him; he breathed a greater boldness. “Let yourself, on the contrary, go—in all agreeable directions. These are precious hours—at our age they mayn’t recur. Don’t have it to say to yourself at Milrose, next winter, that you hadn’t courage for them.” And then as his comrade queerly stared: “Live up to Mrs. Pocock.” ”

“ The doctor stroked the clustering curls from her forehead, and whispered, "Suppose, Milly, you were to hear that you had a real mother, like other little girls, such as you were talking about the other day?"
Her bright blue eyes opened with a sudden look of intelligence, or returning memory. "I had a mamma once, think," she said.
"Do you remember anything about her?" asked Dr. Mansfield.
The little girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I can remember a soldier carrying me to a big ship, and then going away."
"That must have been your papa, I think," said the doctor. ”

“ To Speed, sitting in the Masters' pew, and giving vent to his ever-ready imagination, Millstead seemed a personification of all that was youthful and clear-spirited and unwilling to pay any more than merely respectful attention to the exhortations of elders. ”

“ I used to think maybe he’d fall in love with Milly; but,—Geraldine says she knows too much for a man like him really to care for; and I guess she does, for anybody can see I’m a simpleton,—and he certainly likes me the best,—don’t he, Milly? Why, how red your cheeks are,—and no wonder, it’s so hot in this pent-up room. Let’s go down,” and without waiting for an answer, Lilian tripped down the stairs, followed by Mildred and Oliver,—the latter having forgotten his headache in the pleasure of seeing his former playmate. ”

“ I love every speck of you, Oliver, and, if I could, I’d give you my feet, though they ain’t much handsomer than yours, they are so big!” and she stuck up a short, fat foot, which, to Oliver, seemed the prettiest he had ever seen.
“No, Milly,” he said, “I’d rather be the deformed one. I want you to grow up handsome, as I most know you will!” and, resuming his task, he looked proudly at the bright little face, which bade fair to be wondrously beautiful.
Mildred did not like to work if she could help it, and, climbing upon the bed, she lay there while Oliver stitched on industriously. ”

“ You will live yet many years.”
“No, darling,” he answered; “I am almost home, and now that I have seen you again, I have no wish it should be otherwise. But, Milly, you must let me have your husband to-night. There is something I wish to tell him, and I can do it better when it is dark around me. Shall it be so, Milly?”
“Yes, Olly,” was Mildred’s ready answer.
And so that night, while she lay sleeping with Edith in her arms, Lawrence sat by Oliver listening to his story. ”

“ Milton's phrase describing a dull woman as "an image of earth and phlegm" likewise attracts notice. "We confess," he says, "this is something of a sad case; but yet I believe you speak but hyperbolically (as they use to say) : for women are usually more than earth and phlegm; they have many times spirit enough to wear the breeches, if they meet not with a rare wit to order them. I wonder you should use such phrases: I know nor hear of maids or women that are all earth and phlegm, much less images of earth and phlegm. ”

“ Till All Things become One Great Satan, in Holiness
Oppos’d to Mercy, and the Divines Delusion, Jesus, be no more.’
Suddenly around Milton on my Path the Starry Seven
Burn’d terrible! My Path became a solid fire, as bright
As the clear Sun, & Milton silent came down on my Path.
And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven, Forms
Human, with Trumpets innumerable, sounding articulate
As the Seven spake; and they stood in a mighty Column of Fire
Surrounding Felpham’s Vale, reaching to the Mundane Shell, Saying:
‘Awake, Albion awake! ”

“ In that respect I will answer for Mildred. You should be able to answer for Reginald. Now that your eyes are opened, invite his confidence. Speak to him frankly and lovingly, and he will conceal nothing from you. I repeat, it would be an excellent match. She is in every way worthy of him, and he is worthy of her. She is a lady; her mother is a lady, and the personification of sweetness, though I fancy sometimes she has a sorrow. But what human being is perfectly happy? And Mildred's father is a gentleman. ”

“ He did hear, and comprehended it too, but for some moments he could only weep over her and call her his “darling Milly.” Then, when more composed, he listened while she told him what she knew, interspersing her narrative with the kisses which had so astonished Edith and sent her with the wondrous tale to the drawing-room, from which she soon returned, and marching this time boldly up to Mildred, said:
“That big man says you mustn’t tiss him any more,” and she looked askance at Lawrence, who laughed aloud at the little creature’s attitude and manner. ”

“ At Scotland Yard, Milton’s only son, John, was born, and here his protracted labours in his vehement controversy with Salmasius brought on the blackness of great darkness which, at the age of forty-three, for ever shut his world from view. For the next twenty years and more it is the blind poet whose life we follow, during the period when his fiery spirit was chastened not only by his own afflictions, but by the nation’s also.
In 1652 Milton moved to Petty France, now York Street, near the Bird Cage Walk, which was so named from the king’s aviary there. ”

“ This poignantly human note is observable in almost every work Millet wrought; his passionate sympathy with his fellow-man is the keynote of his art. The wood-cutter in his arduous toil, the shepherd in his solitariness, the labourer turning the soil with unvarying and laborious monotony, the mother caring for her children—all carry the same message for him of that strange and incomprehensible mingling of joy and sadness we call life. ”

“ Milton has imagined his Locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's bristles; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs 'which of a nation armed contained the strength.' I don't remember, he says black: but could Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do you? Mr. Dawe with striking originality of conception has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's, in curl and quantity resembling Mrs. Professor's, [73] his Limbs rather stout, about such a man as my Brother or Rickman—but no Atlas nor Hercules, nor yet so bony as Dubois, the Clown of Sadler's Wells. ”

“ Why, I’d give more for Milly’s little finger than for that gutta percha’s whole body. Afraid of the dark,—little fool! How can he coo round her as he does! But I’ll put a flea in his ear. I’ll tell him that in Mildred Howell’s face, when she thought that he was dead, I saw who it was she loved. I ain’t blind,” and the Judge paced up and down the room, while Mildred kept on her way, and soon reached the gable-roof.
“A pretty time of day to get here,” growled old Hepsy; “after the worst is over, and he got well to bed. ”

“ Never surely did a youth leave the academic halls of England more full of fair promise than Milton, when, at the age of twenty-three, he quitted Cambridge to reside at his father’s house, amid the quiet beauties of a rural neighbourhood some twenty miles distant from London. Fair in person, with a clear fresh complexion, light brown hair which parted in the middle and fell in locks to his shoulders, clear grey eyes, and a well-knit frame of moderate proportions—there could not have been found a finer picture of pure and ingenuous English youth. ”

“ Miss Milligan was tall and full of figure with an elegant waist and a bust so like a pin-cushion that it fulfilled the duties of that article admirably. Her small bright eyes set in a wide expanse of face suggested nothing so much as currants in an underdone bun, and just now, as she watched the graceful figure of Mrs. Coombe, bride to be, disappear around the corner, they gave the impression of having been poked too far in while the bun was soft.
The door of Miss Milligan's select parlours did not open upon the main street, it being far from her desire to attract promiscuous trade. ”

“ So the millers hung it as they were asked; and when the song was finished, the bird spread its wide white wings and, with the millstone round its neck and the little rose-red shoes in one foot, the golden chain in the other, it flew back to the rose tree. But the little playmate was not there; he was inside the house eating his dinner.
Then the bird flew to the house, and rattled the millstone about the eaves until the stepmother cried, "Hearken! How it thunders!" ”

“ What is it, Milly?"
"A 'lectern,' I suppose you mean."
"Yes, that's it—'lectern'; and a big Bible to put on it, and lots of Prayer-books and Hymnals to stick around the church, and some vases for flowers, and a brass cross and foot-stools, and lots of other things they need. Mrs. Pearson said we must try to send as many fancy articles as we could to the fair, and try to sell some tickets."
"I have no time to make anything, and besides I don't do any fancy-work," said Millicent; "and if you don't mind, Joan, I wish you would go. I am very busy just now." ”

“ He saw in it a symbol of a father exhausting himself in silence for the life of his family. "Yes, Millet works for those who belong to him," he said, "he exhausts himself like a tree that produces too much blossom and fruit; he wears himself out to keep his children alive. ”