In
Cousin
Phillis
I found sentences that could with very few changes be fitted to my
circumstances and character. The misfortune of being scholarly! Which
will never be, if I can help it, forgot or neglected, for the fear of
doing either – bidden by other responsibilities – turned me from
ever considering Wife and Mother. And yet a reclusive life makes one
hot and cold with shyness, amongst strangers or with acquaintances,
whether addressing them directly or via an instrument – a voice
transported over a crackling line. The flush of heat, the hurried
words; the calmness that after takes a while to descend, as a task
achieved courses through the veins. Confidence in such things is not
a scholar's life, and it's hard to trick or convince the mind
otherwise.
A
scholar's life is silence; a silence that enables one to take note of
the double tick of the wall clock, 'perpetually clicking out the
passage of moments.'
The
eye reads a further line, a new thought occurs, which the mind
ponders, turns it over, back and forth, so as to consider its every
angle: could it be used to good effect? Is it a full stop or a dot,
dot, dot? The wall clock tick-ticks.
Picture credit: Junghans Wall Clock Model 32-03-89, Max Bill, 1957 (source: WikiArt).
See Cousin Phillis and Other Stories by Elizabeth Gaskell.
From journal, November 2021.
