[The Amazing Marriage by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link book
The Amazing Marriage

CHAPTER III
4/13

Mary Dump testifies to her kindness of heart to her dependents.

If we are to speak of goodness, I am afraid there are other witnesses.
I resent being warned that my time is short and that I have wasted much of it over 'the attractive Charles.' What I have done I have done with a purpose, and it must be a storyteller devoid of the rudiments of his art who can complain of my dwelling on Charles Dump, for the world to have a pause and pin its faith to him, which it would not do to a grander person--that is, as a peg.

Wonderful events, however true they are, must be attached to something common and familiar, to make them credible.
Charles Dump, I say, is like a front-page picture to a history of those old quiet yet exciting days in England, and when once you have seized him the whole period is alive to you, as it was to me in the delicious dulness I loved, that made us thirsty to hear of adventures and able to enjoy to the utmost every thing occurring.

The man is no more attractive to me than a lump of clay.

How could he be?
But supposing I took up the lump and told you that there where I found it, that lump of clay had been rolled over and flung off by the left wheel of the prophet's Chariot of Fire before it mounted aloft and disappeared in the heavens above!--you would examine it and cherish it and have the scene present with you, you may be sure; and magnificent descriptions would not be one-half so persuasive.


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