game, she constantly exposes her to ironic self-betrayal, and finally allows her disciplined husband the luxury of an ironic retort,—not in the lady's presence, of course, but by way of reply to his daughter Molly's anticipation of an orgy of freedom in her absence.[1]
"The doctor's eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was
perfectly grave. 'I'm not going to be corrupted. With toil
and labour I've reached a very fair height of refinement. I
won't be pulled down again.'"
Kingsley and Brontë are both incapable of this quiet
banter, and can produce from their earnest souls only an
awkward and angry sarcasm.
The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely are asking whether Shirley's expressive manner of singing can be proper.[2]
"Was it proper? * * * Decidedly not: it was strange, it
was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual
must be improper. Shirley was judged."
Alton Locke says of his own aspiration,[3]
"No doubt it was very self-willed and ambitious of me to
do that which rich men's sons are flogged for not doing, and rewarded
with all manner of prizes, scholarships, fellowships, for
doing."
But in the midst of his bitterness he stops to remark,
"I really do not mean to be flippant or sneering. I have seen
the evil of it as much as any man, in myself and in my own
class."
The description in Yeast of the fight between the
squire's retainers and the London poachers, which results
