A Commonplace Girl (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Commonplace Girl

It is Mr. Fielding I am thinking of, Geoffrey. You know I don't mean to be unkind.

N 0, you were never unkind, Judith, all the years we've been friends. And you'll believe I mean it for the best, won't you? And you and Mrs. Sylvestre and Dr. Tyson will look after my father, I know, better than I could. And, honestly, I do want to see the world. Every man wants to see the world. Existence stagnates here. I want to be face to face with Life, where it is fresh and untamed. I want to see the human animal with his native instincts in free play. Here they are all smoothed out of him by centuries of civilisation and the grinding wheels of use and wont. We are all commonplace and un interesting.

That sounds very fine, but it's all nonsense, Geoffrey. Here, in our own village, we have our tragedies and interests just as much as elsewhere. Why, you silly boy, don't people marry and die here 7 What can they do more?' You may call me a silly boy if you like, my dear girl, but I am twenty-one, and you are only eighteen, and, of course, you can't understand. I want to see different types of men and women different phases of life. I want to meet famous men -the men who make history; and beautiful women the women one reads about, whose eyes set men's hearts on fire. Everything here is tame and respectable.

Yes, Judith said stiffly; even such a beautiful woman as Mrs. Sylvestre has the drawback of being respectable.

Geoffrey laughed. I suppose girls like every thing humdrum and respectable. They don't feel like this.

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