Angels and Insects Read Online Free

wrote,
    ‘ “I shall die if I cannot have her.” ’
    He thought for some time, pen in hand, and then wrote again, under the first line,
    ‘ “I shall die if I cannot have her.” ’
    He added,
    Of course I shall not die; that is absurd—but that old statement from an old tale seems best to reflect the kind of landslide, or whirlpool-gulf, that has taken place in my soul since this evening. I believe I am a rational being. I have survived, retaining my sanity and cheerfulness, near-starvation, prolonged isolation, yellow fever, treachery, malice, and shipwreck. I remember as a little boy, on reading my Fairy Book, a premonition of terror rather than delight about what human love might be, in that sentence, ‘I shall die if I cannot have her.’ I was in no hurry for love. I did not seek it out. The rational plan I had made for my life—the romantic plan no less, which now coincides with the rational, both implying a return, after a reasonable rest, to the forest—left no space for the search for a wife, for I believed I felt no particular need for one. In my delirium in the boat, it is true, and earlier under the ministrations, or torments, of that filthy
hag
in whose house I cured
myself
of the fever, I did dream from time to time of a kindly female presence, as something deeply needed, unreasonably forgotten, as though the phantom were weeping for me as I was weeping for her.
    Where am I taking myself? I am writing in almost as high a delirium as I experienced then. Conventional wisdom would be shocked that I even allowed the idea of union with her to enter my mind—for in conventional wisdom’s eyes, our stations are unequal, and more than that, I am penniless and with no prospects. I would not be swayed by such wisdom myself—and have no respect for artificial ranks and places, which are supported by inbreeding of stock, and by time-wasting frivolous pursuits—I am as good a
man
, take me for all in all, as E. A. and have, I dare swear it, used my intelligence and my bodily courage to greaterpurpose. But how would that consideration weigh with any such family, constructed exactly to reject any such intr …
    The only rational course is to forget the whole matter, suppress these inopportune feelings, make an end.
    He thought for a moment, and then wrote for a third time,
    ‘ “I shall die if I cannot have her.” ’
    He slept well, and dreamed that he was pursuing a flock of golden birds through the forest, which settled and preened and allowed him to approach, and then rose and wheeled away, crying in high voices, only to settle again, just out of reach.
    Harald Alabaster’s study, or den, was next to Bredely’s small chapel. It was hexagonal in shape, with wood-panelled walls and two deep windows, carved in stone in the Perpendicular style: the ceiling too was carved stone, pale grey-gold in colour, a honey-comb of smaller hexagons. There was an unusual roof-light at the centre of this, reminiscent of the Lantern of Ely Cathedral, under which the large Gothic desk was imposingly set, giving the room the appearance of a chapter house. Round the walls were both tall, arched bookcases full of polished leather, and deep-drawered cabinets. There were also three free-standing hexagonal, glass-topped display cabinets, in lustrous mahogany, inside one of which reposed, on their pins, several of William’s earlier captures, the Heliconeae, the Papilionidae, the Danaidae, the Ithomiidae. Above the cases hung texts, written out with careful penmanship in Gothic script, and bordered with charming designs of fruit, flowers, foliage, birds and butterflies. Harald Alabaster pointed them out to William Adamson.
    ‘My daughter Eugenia takes pleasure in working these designs for me. I think they are very pleasing—prettily penned, and carefully executed.’
    William read aloud,
    ‘There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:
    The ants are a people not strong, yet they