We read
together, rode, walked, and talked together, and listened in the
evening to music. For a sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, who
visited him while I was there, and took supper with us, delighting us
with her wit and spirit and her youthful voice.
But though Reverie more than once suggested it, I could not bring
myself to return to the "World's End" and its garrulous company.
Whether it was the moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most abhorred, or
Stubborn's slug-like eye, or the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, I
cannot say.
Moreover, I had begun to feel a very keen curiosity to see the way
that had lured Christian on with such graceless obstinacy. They had
spoken of remorse, poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, even
vice: but these appeared to me only such things as might fret a man to
set violently out on, not to persist in such a course; or likelier
yet, to abandon hope, to turn back from heights that trouble or
confusion set so far, and made seem dreams.
How could I help, too, being amused to think how vastly strange these
fellows considered a man's venturing whither his star beckoned; though
that star were only power, only fame, only beauty, only peace? What
wonder they were many?
Not far from this place, Reverie informed me, were pitched the booths
of Vanity Fair.
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