Shirley

unscared by the howl, and he will be unelated by the shout.«
    »I said she was mad – she is.«
    »This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him: he will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll tell you his name.«
    »You shall tell me, or –«
    »Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington.«
    Mr. Sympson rose up furious: he bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
    »Ma'am, you
shall
tell me
this:
will your principles permit you to marry a man without money – a man below you?«
    »Never a man below me.«
    (In a high voice.) »Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?«
    »What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?«
    »I insist upon knowing.«
    »You do n't go the way to know.«
    »My family respectability shall not be compromised.«
    »A good resolution: keep it.«
    »Madam, it is you who shall keep it.«
    »Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family.«
    »Do you disown us?«
    »I disdain your dictatorship.«
    »Whom
will
you marry, Miss Keeldar?«
    »Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him: not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I
only
esteem him.«
    »Whom have you in your eye?«
    »Four rejected candidates.«
    »Such obstinacy could not be, unless you were under improper influence.«
    »What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil, – improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?«
    »Are you a young lady?«
    »I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.«
    »Do you know (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity), do you know the whole neighbourhood teams with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours – the foreigner Moore?«
    »Does it?«
    »It does. Your name is in every mouth.«
    »It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify them.«
    »Is it
that
person who has power to influence you?«
    »Beyond any whose cause you have advocated.«
    »Is it he you will marry?«
    »He is handsome, and manly, and commanding.«
    »You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! The low trader!«
    »He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and ruler in his bearing.«
    »She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!«
    »When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded: the Moores know only honour and courage.«
    »I say she is mad.«
    »You have taunted me till my blood is up. You have worried me till I turn again.«
    »That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let the Usher call you Sister?«
    Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye, as she fixed it on her questioner now.
    »No: no. Not for a province of possession, – not for a century of life.«
    »You cannot separate the husband from his family.«
    »What then?«
    »Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be.«
    »Mr. Sympson. ... I am sick at heart with all this weak trash: I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. Let us part.
    It is not,« she resumed, much excited, – »It is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man: perhaps you mean well in your way; but we cannot suit: we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off: Mr. Sympson – go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I'll none of them: I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope, than you.«
    »Another creed! I believe she is an infidel.«
    »An infidel to
your
religion; an atheist to
your
god.«
    »
An
–
atheist!!!
«
    »Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you too, if not an infidel, are an idolater: I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best – making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and