Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 1).djvu/139

 light; my eyes are tired, and I can’t do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot listen; if I listen, I cannot sew.”

“Fi, done! Quel enfantillage!” began Hortense. Mr. Moore, as usual, suavely interposed.

“Permit her to neglect the embroidery for this evening. I wish her whole attention to be fixed on my accent, and to ensure this, she must follow the reading with her eyes; she must look at the book.”

He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline’s chair, and thus began to read.

The very first scene in “Coriolanus” came with smart relish to his intellectual palate, and still as he read he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction; he did not say he thought his irrational pride right, but he seemed to feel it so. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile.

“There’s a vicious point hit already,” she said, “you sympathize with that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished fellow-men, and insults them; there, go on.” He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the spirit displayed was barbarous, yet the encounter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius, he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel