"You
talk about one's soaring and sailing, but if one marries at all one
touches the earth. One has human feelings and needs, one has a heart
in one's bosom, and one must marry a particular individual. Your
mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a better
understanding with Lord Warburton, and she's horrified at my
contenting myself with a person who has none of his great
advantages-no property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands,
nor position, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort.
It's the total absence of all these things that pleases me. Mr.
Osmond's simply a very lonely, a very cultivated and a very honest
man-he's not a prodigious proprietor."
Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said
merited deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking
of the things she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating
himself to the weight of his total impression-the impression of her
ardent good faith. She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded,
but she was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic
of her that, having invented a fine theory about Gilbert Osmond, she
loved him not for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties
dressed out as honours.
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