 Preface of the Heavenly Twins. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grand. Preface. They call us the Heavenly Twins, what signs of the zodiac said the tenor? No, signs of the times, said the boy. The time is wracked with birth pangs. Every hour brings forth some gasping truth, and truth newborn looks a misshapen and untimely growth. The terror of the household and its shame, a monster coiling in its nurse's lap, that some would strangle, some would starve, but still it breathes and passed from hand to hand, and suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts comes slowly to its stature and its form, calms the rough ridges of its dragon scales, changes to shining locks, its snaky hair, and moves transfigured into angel guise, welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth, and folded in the same encircling arms that cast it like a serpent from their hold, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Proham, Mendelssohn Zaladja, E. Watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps. From the high cathedral tower the solemn assurance floated forth to be a warning or a promise according to the mental state of those whose ears it filled, and the mind familiar with the phrase continued it involuntarily, carrying the running accompaniment as well as the words in the melody on to the end. After the last reverberation of the last stroke of every hour had died away, and just when expectation had been succeeded by the sense of silence, they rang it out by day and night, the bells and the four winds of heaven by day and night, spread it abroad over the great wicked city and over the fair flat country, by many a tiny township and peaceful farmstead, and scattered hamlet on, on it was said, to the sea, to the sea, which was twenty miles away. But there were many who doubted this, though good men and true who knew the music well declared they had heard it every note distinct on summer evenings when they sat alone on the beach and the waves were still, and it sounded then they said like the voice of a tenor who sings to himself softly in murmurous monotones. And some thought this must be true because those who said it knew the music well, but others maintained that it could not be true just for that very reason. While others again, although they confess that they knew nothing of the distance sound may travel under special circumstances, ventured nevertheless to assert that the chime the people heard on those occasions was ringing in their own hearts. And indeed it would have been strange if those in whose mother's years it had long before they were born who knew it for one of their first sensations and felt it to be like a blood relation a part of themselves, though having a separate existence had not carried the memory of it with them wherever they went ready to respond at any moment like sensitive chords vibrating to a touch. But everything in the world that is worth a thought becomes food for controversy sooner or later and the chime was no exception to the rule. Differences of opinion regarding it had always been numerous and extreme and it was amusing to listen to the wordy warfare which was continually being waged upon the subject. There were people living immediately beneath it who wished it far enough they said but they used to boast about it nevertheless when they went to other places just as they did about their troublesome children whom they declared in like manner that they expected to be the death of them when they and their worrying ways were within range of criticism. It was a flagrant instance of the narrowness of small humanity which judges people and things not on their own merits but with regard to their effect upon itself. A circumstance being praised today because importance is to be derived from its importance and blamed tomorrow because a bilious attack makes thought on any subject irritating. Other people like the idea of the chime but were not content with its arrangement. If it had been set in another way you know it would have been so different they asserted with as much emphasis as if there were wisdom in the words and some said it would have been more effective if it had not wronged so regularly and some maintained that it owed its power to that same regularity which suggested something permanent in this weary world of change. Among the minor details of the discussion there was one point in particular which exercised the more active minds but did not seem likely ever to be settled. It was as to whether the expression given to the announcement by the bells did not vary at different hours of the day and night or at different seasons of the year at all events and opinion differed as widely upon this point as we are told they did on one occasion in some other place with regard to the question whether a fish weighed heavier when it was dead than when it was alive. A question that would certainly never have been settled either had it not happened after a long time and much discussion that someone accidentally weighed a fish when it was found there was no difference. The question of expression however could not be decided in that way expression being imponderable and it was pretty generally acknowledged that the truth could not be ascertained and must therefore remain a matter of opinion but that did not stop the talk once indeed someone declared positively that the state of a man's feelings at the moment would influence his perceptions and make the chime sound glad when he was glad and mournful when he was melancholy but nobody liked the solution. Let them wrangle as they might however the citizens were proud of their chime and for a really good reason it meant something it was not a mere jingle of bells as most chimes are but a phrase with a distinct idea in it which they understood as we understand a foreign language when we can read it without translating it it might have puzzled them to put the phrase into other words but they had it off pat enough as it stood and they held it sacred which is why they quarreled about it it being usual for men to quarrel about what they hold sacred as if the thing could only be maintained by heart insistence the things they hold sacred that is although they cannot be sure of them like the forms of a religion which admit of controversy as distinguished from the god they desire to worship about whom they have no doubt and therefore never dispute in this latter respect however the case of the people of morning quest was just the reverse of that which obtains in most other places for in consequence of the hourly insistence of the chime their most impressive monitor they talked much more of him whom they should worship than of various ways to worship him and the most persistent of all the questions which occupied their attention arose out of the in voluntary but continuous effort of one generation after another to define with scientific accuracy and to everybody's satisfaction is exact nature and attributes in consequence of which efforts there had come to be several most distinct but quite contradictory ideas upon the subject there were some simple minded folk to whom the chime typified a god essentially masculine and like a man hugely exaggerated but somewhat amorphous because they could not see exactly what the exaggeration consisted except in the size of him they pictured him sitting alone on a throne of ivory and gold in late with precious stones and recited the catalog of those mentioned in the book of the revelation by preference as imparting a fine ritual flavor to the day and he sat upon the throne day and night looking down upon the earth and never did anything else nor felt it monotonous booty himself in nirvana could not have attained to a greater perfection of contemplation than that with which they credited this curious divinity who served solely for a finish to their mental range as the sky was to their visual a useful point at which to aim their rudimentary faculty of reverence but others again of a different order of intelligence have passed beyond this stage and saw in him more of a creature moving about in worlds not realized very like jove but unmarried he was both beneficent and jealous and had to be propitiated by regular attendance at church but further than that he was not exacting and therefore they ventured to take his name in vain when they were angry and also to call upon him for help with many apologies when there was nobody else to whom they could apply although so long as the current of their lives ran smoothly on they seldom troubled their heads about him at all there were deeper natures than those however who were not content with this small advance and these last had by degrees as suited their convenience but without perceiving it gradually discovered in him every attribute good bad or indifferent which they found in themselves thus describing to him a nature of a highly complex and most extraordinarily inconsistent kind less that of a god than other demon to them he was still a great shape like a man but a shape to be loved as well as feared a god of peace who patronized war a gentle lamb who looked on at carnage complacently a just god who condemned the innocent to suffer an omnipotent god who was powerless to make his law supreme and they reserved to themselves the right of constantly adding to or slightly altering this picture but having completed it so far they were thoroughly well satisfied with it and in congruence as it was they managed to make it the most popular of all the presentments partly because being so flexible it could be adjusted to every state of mind but also because there was money in it numbers of people lived by it and made name and fame besides and these kept it going by damaging anybody who ventured to question his beauty for there is no faith that a man upholds so forcibly as the one by which he earns his livelihood whether it be faith in the fetish he has helped to make or in a particular kind of leather that sells quickest because it wears out so fast in these latter days however it began to appear as if the supremacy of the great masculine idea was at last being seriously threatened for even in morning quest a new voice of extraordinary sweetness had already been heard not his the voice of man but theirs the collective voice of humanity which declared that he watching was the all-pervading good the great moral law the spirit of pure love a laween mist translated in the book of genesis as he only but signifying the union to which all nature testifies the male and female principles which together created the universe the infinite father mother without whom imperfect accord and exact equality the best government of nations has always been crippled and aborted those who heard this final voice were they who love the chime most truly and reverence did but they did not speak about it much only when the message sounded they listened with that full hearted pleasure which is the best praise and thanks mendelsen must have felt it when the melody first occurred to him and the words had wedded themselves to the music in his soul and the chime certainly a power to move the hearts of many but it would be hard to say when it had most power or upon whom doubtless the majority of those who had ears to hear in the big old-fashioned city heard not use having dull their faculties or if for chance the music reached them it conveyed no idea to their minds and past unheeded it was but an accustomed measure one more added to the myriad other sounds that make up the buzz of life and helped like each separate note of accord to complete the very murmur which is the voice of a whole city full but of course there were times when it was especially apt to strike home in the early morning for instance when the mind was fresh and hope was strong enough to interpret the assurance into a promise of joy and again at noon when fatigue was growing and the mind perceived a sympathetic melancholy in the tones which was altogether restful but it was at midnight it had most power it seemed to rise then to the last pitch of enthusiasm sounding triumphant like the special effort that finishes a strain as if to speed the departing interval of time but when it rang again after the first hour of the new day its voice had dropped as it were to that tone of indifference which expresses the accustomed doing of some monotonous duty which has become too much of a habit to excite either pleasure or pain to the tired watcher then for whom the notes were mere tones conveying no idea the soft melancholy cadence all by distance was like the half stifled echo of her own last stifled sigh it is likely however that the chime failed less of its effect outside the city than it did within but there again it depended upon the hearer when the mellow tones floated above the heat where the gypsies camped only one perchance might listen lifting her bright eyes with pleasure and longing in them dumbly as a child might yet showing for a moment some glimmering promise of a soul but too many in the village close at hand the chime brought comfort it seemed to assure the sick counting the slow hours that they were not forsaken and helped them to bear their pain with patience it seemed to utter to the way warn a word which told them their trouble was not in vain it seemed to invite all those who waited and were anxious to trust their care to him and seek repose it was all this and much more to many people and yet when it spread in another direction over the fields it meant nothing to the yawning plowman either musical or poetical had no significance whatever for him if it were not of the time of day gathered however with the help of sundry other sensations of which hunger and fatigue were cheap it probably conveyed as much and neither more nor less to the team he drove but perhaps of all the affairs of life with which the chime had mingled the most remarkable could they be collected and recorded would be the occasions on which the hearing of the message had marked a turning point in the career of some one person as happened once on a summer afternoon when it was heard by a lanker sure collier a young lad with an unkempt mop of golden hair delicate features and limbs which were too refined for his calling who was coming up the river mourn on a barge the river winds for a time through a fertile undulating bit of country and nothing of the city can be seen until you are almost in it except the castle of the duke of mourning quest high purged on a hill on the farther side in the spire of the cathedral which might not attract your attention however if it were not pointed out to you above the trees when the chime floated over this sparsely people track filling the air with music but coming from no one could tell whence there was something mysterious in the sound of it to an imaginative listener in so apparently remote a place and once twice as that long hours past the young collier heard it ring and wondered he had nothing to do but listen and watch the man on the bank who led the horse that was towing the barge or address a rare remark to his solitary companion an old sailor dressed in a southwestern blue jersey and the invariable drab trousers tar the sprint and long boots of his calling who stood automatically facing the matters in beautiful abstraction he would have faced an Atlantic gale however with that same look when the chime rang out for the third time the young collier spoke it's the bars of a song maybe he suggested eye lad was the laconic rejoinder the barge moved on past a little farmhouse close to the water's edge past some lazy cattle standing in a field flicking off flies with their tails past a patient fisherman would not caught a thing that day and scarcely expected to but still fished on the sun sparkled down on the water the weary man and horse plotted along the bank far away a sweet bird sang and the collier spoke again does that know the bars he said the old man had been brought up in those parts he knew it well and slowly repeated it to the lad who listened without a sign sitting with his dreamy eyes fixed on the water he watching over israel slumbers not nor sleeps there was another long silence and then the lad spoke once more with apathetic gravity asking who's he the old man kept his eyes fixed on a distant reach of the river and moved no muscle of his face i guess it's christ he said it last i never eared tail on in the collier answered slowly has never eared tail on christ the old man asked and measured machine like tones i thought everyone knowed on him why what religion are you well me fathers a liberal leaseways in as brought me up was the passionless rejoinder slowly spoken but i don't know no one of the name of christ and what's more i sure you don't work down our way with which he sauntered forward with his hands in his trouser pockets and sat in the bow and the old man steered on as before how like a mind is to a river both may be pure and transparent and lovable and strong to support and admirable each may mirror the beauties of earth and sky and still have a wonderful beauty of its own to delight us both are always moving onward bound irresistibly to be absorbed in a great ocean mystery to be swept away irreclaimably without hope of return but leaving memories of themselves in good or evil wrought by them and both are pure at the outset but can be contaminated when they in turn contaminate and being perverted in their use become accursed and curse again with all the more effect because the province of each was to bless the car your lad in the bow of the barge felt something of the fascination of the river that day he saw it sparkle in the sunshine he heard it ripple along its banks he felt the slow and dreamy motion of the boat it bore and his mind was filled with unaccustomed thought and a strange journey which he did not understand there was something singularly attractive about the lad although his clothes were tattered his golden hair and delicate skin were begrind his great bright eyes had no intelligent expression in them and there was that discontented undisciplined look about his mouth which is common to an educated man he had no human knowledge but he had capacity and he had music the divine gift in his soul and the voice of an angel to utter it what passed through his dim consciousness in the interval which followed his last remark no one will ever know but the chime had once more sounded and suddenly as he sat there he took up the strain and sang it and the laborers in the fields and the loiterers by the river and the ladies in the gardens even the very cattle in the meadows looked up and listened wondering while he buried the simple melody as singers can finding new meaning in the message and filling the summer silence with perfect raptures of ecstatic sound it was a voice to gladden the hearts of men and one who heard it knew this and followed the barge and took the lad and had him taught so that in after days the world was ready to fall at his feet and worship the gift and so time passed change followed change but the chime was immutable and always whatever came it rang out calmly over the beautiful old city of morning quest and entered into it and was part of the life of it mixing itself impartially with the good and evil with all the sin and suffering the pitiful pettiness the indifference the cruelty and every form of misery begetting vice as much as with the purity above reproach the charity the self sacrifice the unswerving truth the patient endurance and courage not to be daunted which are in every city mixing itself with these as the light and air of heaven do and with effects doubtless as unexpected and as fine and ready also to be a help to the helpless a guide to the rash and strain a comfort to the comfortless a reproach to the reckless and a warning to the wicked perhaps an ambitious stranger passing through the city would hear the chime and pause to listen and in the pause a flash of recollection which show him the weary way he had gone the disappointments which were the inevitable accompaniments of even his most brilliant successes in the years of toil that had been his since he made the world his idol and swerved from the higher light and then he would ask himself the good of it all and finding that there was no good he would go his way cherishing the new impression and asking of all things is it too late now and perhaps at the same moment a lady rolling past in her carriage would say how sweet or the beauty of the bells might win some other thoughtless tribute from her if she heard the chime at all but probably she never heard it because the accustomed tones were as familiar as the striking of the hour the striking of an hour that bore no special significance for her and therefore set no chord vibrating in her soul the thoughts of her mind deafened her heart to it as completely as the thunder of a wagon had at the same time deafened the wagoners ears while the bells uttered their message above him and so it was with the doctor overworked and anxious hurrying on his rounds the grasping lawyer absorbed in calculation and all the other money grubbers the indolent woman the pleasure seeker in the hard-pressed toilet for daily bread if they heard they heeded not because their hour had not yet come at least this is what some thought who believed that for everyone a special hour would come when they would be called and then left to decide as it were between life and death and life if they accepted life the next message would be fought with strength and help and blessing but if they rejected it the bells would utter their condemnation and leave them to their faith end of preface chapter one of the heavenly twins this is a labor box recording all labor box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit laborbox.org recording by Kathleen the heavenly twins by Sarah G book one childhoods and girlhoods the spring is the pleasantest of the seasons and the young of most animals though far from being completely fashioned afford a more agreeable sensation than the full grown because the imagination is entertained with the promise of something more and does not acquiesce in the present object of the sense Burke on the sublime I'm inclined to agree with Francis Galton in believing that education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone and that most of our qualities are innate Darwin the heavenly twins chapter one at 19 Evadney looked out of narrow eyes at an untried world inquiringly she wanted to know she found herself forced to put prejudice aside in order to see beneath it deep down into the sacred heart of things where the truth is and the bewildering clash of human precept with human practice ceases to vex and this not of design but of necessity it was a need of her nature to know when she came across something she did not understand a word a phrase or an illusion to a phase of life the thing became a haunting demon only to be exercised by positive knowledge on the subject ages of education ages of hereditary preparation had probably gone to the making of such a mind and rendered its action inevitable for generations knowledge is acquired or rather instilled by force in families but once in a way there comes a child who demands instruction as a right and in her own family Evadney appears to have been that child not that she often asked for information her faculty was sufficient to enable her to acquire it without troubling herself or anybody else a word being enough on some subjects to make whole regions of thought intelligible to her it was as if she only required to be reminded of things she had learned before her mother said she was her most satisfactory child she had been easy of education in the school room she had listened to instruction with interest and intelligence and had apparently accepted every article of faith in god and man which had been offered for her guidance through life with unquestioning confidence at least she had never been heard to object to any time honored axiom and she did in fact accept them all but only provisionally she wanted to know silent sociable sober and sincere she had walked over the course of her early education and gone on far beyond it with such ease that those in authority over her never suspected the extent to which she had outstripped them it was her father who struck the keynote to which the tune of her early intellectual life was set she was about 12 years old at the time and they were sitting out on the lawn at Graylingay one day after dinner as was their want in the summer he on this occasion under the influence of a good cigar mellow in mind and moral and sentiment but inclining to be didactic for the moment because the coffee was late she in a receptive mood ready to gather silently and store with care in her capacious memory any precept that might fall from his lips to be taken out and tried as opportunity offered where is your mother he asked i don't know father evadney answered i think she is in the drawing room never say you think my dear about matters of fact he said when it is possible to know it is your business to find out and if you cannot find out you must say you don't know it is moral cowardice injurious to yourself not to own your ignorance and you may also be misleading or unintentionally deceiving someone else how might the moral cowardice of not owning my ignorance be injurious to myself father she asked why don't you see he answered you would suffer in two ways if the habit of inaccuracy became confirmed your own character would deteriorate and by leading people to suppose that you are as wise as themselves you lose opportunities of obtaining useful information they won't tell you things they think you know already evadney bent her brows upon this lesson and reflected and doubtless it was the origin of the verbal accuracy for which she afterward became notable patient investigation had always been a pleasure but from that time forward it became a principle also she understood from what her father had said that to know the facts of life exactly is a positive duty which in a limited sense was what he had intended to teach her but the extent to which he carried the precept would have surprised him her mind was prone to experiment with every item of information it gathered in order to test its practical value if she could turn it to account she treasured it if not she rejected it from whatever source it came but she was not herself aware of any reservation in her manner of accepting instruction the trick was innate and in no way interfered with her faith in her friends which was profound she might have justified it however upon her father's authority for she once heard him say to one of her brothers find out for yourself and form your own opinions a lesson which she had laid to heart also not that her father would have approved of her putting it into practice he was one of those men who believe emphatically that a woman should hold no opinion which is not of masculine origin and the maxims he had for his boys differed materially in many respects from those which he gave to his girls but these precepts of his were after all only matches to a bad knee which fired whole trains of reflection and lighted her to conclusions quite other than those at which he had arrived himself in this way however he became her principal instructor she had attached herself to him from the time that she could total and had acquired from his conversation a proper appreciation of masculine precision of thought if his own statements were not always accurate it was from no want of respect for the value of facts for he was great on the subject and often insisted that a lesson or principle of action is contained in the commonest fact but he snubbed a bad knee promptly all the same on one occasion when she mentioned a fact of life and drew a principle of action there from for herself only confusion comes of women thinking for themselves on social subjects he said you must let me decide all such matters for you or you must refer them to your husband when you come under his control a bad knee did not pay much attention to this however because she remembered another remark of his with which she could not make it agree the remark was that women never had thought for themselves and that therefore it was evident that they could not think and that they should not try now as it is obvious that confusion cannot come of a thing that has never been done the inaccuracy of one or other of these statements was glaring enough to put both out of the argument but what he bad knee did note was the use of the word control as she grew up she became her father's constant companion in his walks and flattered by her close attention he fell into the way of talking a good deal to her he enjoyed the fine flavor of his own phrase making and so did she but in such a silent way that nothing ever led him to suspect it was having any but the most desirable effect upon her mind she never attempted to argue and only spoke in order to ask a question on some point which was not clear to her or to make some small comment when he seemed to expect her to do so he often contradicted himself and the fact never escaped her attention but she loved him with a beautiful confidence and her respect remained unchecked when she had to set herself right between his discrepancies she did not dwell on the latter as faults in him but only thought of how wise he was when he warned her to be accurate and felt grateful and in this way she formed her mind upon his sayings and as a direct result of the long informal generally therapeutic lectures to which she listened without prejudice and upon which she brought unsuspected powers of discrimination to bear he had unconsciously made her a more logical reasoning reasonable being than he believed it possible for a woman to be poor papa all that he really knew of his most interesting daughter was that she was growing up a good child physically strong and active morally well educated with a fortunately equitable temper and that she owed a great deal to him what precisely was never defined but when the thought of his kindness recurred to him it always suffused him with happiness he was a portly man with a place in the country and a house in town not rich for his position but well off a magistrate and much respected well educated in the ideas of the ancients with whom his own ideas on many subjects stopped short and hardly to be called intellectual a moderate church man a bigoted conservative narrow and strongly prejudiced rather than highly principled he was quite ignorant of the moral progress of the world at the present time and ready to resent even the upward tendency of evolution when it presented itself to him in the form of any change including of course changes for the better and more especially so if such change threatened to bring about an improvement in the position of women or increase the weight of their influence for good in the world the mere mention of the subject made him rabid and he grew apoplectic whenever he reflected upon the monstrous pretensions of the sex at the present time but the thing that rousted his scorn and indignation most was when a woman ventured to enter any protest against the established order of iniquity he allowed that a certain number of women must of necessity be abandoned and raised no objection to that but what he did consider intolerable was that any one woman should make a stand against the degradation of her own sex he thought that immoral he was well enough to live with however this obstinate english country gentleman although without sympathetic insight and liable to become a petty domestic tyrant at any moment sound was what he would have called himself and he was a man to be envied upon the whole for his family loved him and his friends knew no ill of him end of chapter one chapter two of the heavenly twins this is a labor box recording all labor box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit labor box dot org recording by kathleen the heavenly twins by sarah g evadney like the vicar of wakefield was by nature a lover of happy human faces and she could be playful herself on occasion but she had little if any of the saving sense of humor her habit was to take everything oh grand sayur and to consider it when other people were laughing she would be gravely observant as if she were solving a problem and she would sooner have thought of trying to discover what combination of molecules resulted in a joke with a view to benefiting her species by teaching them how to produce jokes at will and of trying to be witty herself she had to a quite irritating trick of remaining to all outward seeming stolidly unmoved by events which were causing an otherwise general commotion but in cases of danger or emergency she was essentially swift to act as on one occasion for instance when the hamilton house twins were at frailinge the twins had arrived somewhat late in the married lives of their parents and had been welcomed as angel visitants under which fond illusion they were christened respectively angelica and theodore before they were well out of their nurses arms however society with discernment had changed the adores name to diavolo but angelica was sanctioned the irony being obvious the twins were alike in appearance but not nearly so much so as twins usually are it would have been quite easy to distinguish them apart even if one had not been dark in the other fair and for this mercy everybody connected with them had reason to be thankful for as soon as they reached the age of active indiscretion they would certainly have got themselves mixed if they could angelica was the dark one and she was also the elder taller stronger and wicketer of the two the organizer and commander of every expedition before they were five years old everybody about the place was upon the alert both in self-defense and also to see that the twins did not kill themselves bars of iron had to be put on the upstairs windows to prevent them making ladders of the traveler's joy and wisteria modes of egress which they very much preferred to commonplace doors and mr. hamilton wells had been reluctantly obliged to have the moat which was deep and full of fish and had been the glory of hamilton house for generations drained for fear of accidents argument was unavailing with the twins as a means of repression but they were always prepared to argue out any question of privilege with their father and mother cheerfully punishment too had an effect quite other than that intended they were interested at the moment but they would slap each other's hands and put each other in the corner for fun five minutes after they had received similar chastisement in solemn earnest they would have lived out of doors altogether by choice and they managed to make their escape in all weathers if the vigilant watch that was kept upon them were relaxed for a moment they disappeared as if by magic and would probably only be recovered at the farthest limit of their father's property or in the kitchen of some neighboring country gentleman where they were sure to be popular they were always busy about something and when every usual occupation failed they fought each other after a battle they counted scars and scratches for the honor of having most and if there were not bruises enough to satisfy one of them the other was always obligingly ready to fight again until there were mr. hamilton wells had great faith in the discipline of the church service for them and was anxious that they should be early accustomed to go there they behaved pretty well while the salinity was strange enough to awe them and one sunday when lady edeline their mother could not accompany him mr. hamilton wells ventured to go alone with them he took the precaution to place them on either side of him so as to separate them and interpose a solid body between them and any signals they might make to each other but in the quietest part of the service when everybody was kneeling some movement of diavillos attracted his attention for a moment from angelica and when he looked again the latter had disappeared she had discovered that it was possible to creep from pew to pew beneath the seats and had started to explore the church on her way however she observed a pair of stout legs belonging to a respectable elderly woman who was too deep in her devotion to be aware of the intruder and being somewhat astonished by their size she proceeded to test their quality with a pin the consequence being an appalling shriek from the woman which started a shrill trouble cry from herself the service was suspended and mr. hamilton wells the most precise of men hastened down the aisle and fished his daughter out an awful spectacle of dust from under the seat incontinently when mr. and lady adeline hamilton wells went from home for any length of time they were obliged to take their children with them as servants who knew the latter would rather leave than be left in charge of them and this was how it happened that evadney made their acquaintance at an early age it was during their first visit to frailingay while they were still quite tiny and she was hardly in her teens that the event referred to in illustration of one of evadney's characteristics occurred the twins had arrived late in the afternoon and were taken into the dining room where the table was already decorated for dinner it evidently attracted a good deal of their attention but they said nothing at dessert however to which evadney had come down with the elder children the dining room door was seen to open with portentious slowness and there appeared in the aperture two little figures in long nightgowns their forefingers in their mouths their inquisitive nose is tilted in the air and their bright eyes round with astonishment it was like the middle of the night to them and they had expected to find the room empty oh you naughty children lady adeline exclaimed the darlings cried mrs frailing evadney's mother do let them come in and she picked up angelica and held her on her knee one of the other ladies at the opposite end of the long table taking diavolo up at the same time but the moment the children found themselves on a level with the table they made a dart for the centerpiece simultaneously on their hands and knees regardless of the smash of dessert plates decanters wine glasses and fruit dishes which they have said by the way it is shrieked angelica thumping the flat mirror which was part of the table decorations triumphantly it is what cried lady adeline endeavoring to reach the child it's looking glass mama diavolo said it was water there was much amusement at the words and at the quaint spectacle of the two little creatures sitting amid the wreckage in the middle of the table not a bit abashed by the novelty of their conspicuous position only evadney who was standing behind her mother's chair remained grave she seemed to be considering this situation severely and acting on her own responsibility she picked diavolo up in the midst of the general hilarity and carried him out of the room with her hand pressed tight on his thigh the child had come down armed with an open pen knife with which to defend angelica should they encounter any ogres or giants on the stairs and in scrambling up the table he had managed to strike himself in the thigh with it and had severed the femoral artery but with the curious shame which makes some children dislike to own that they are hurt he had contrived to conceal the accident for a moment with his nightgown under cover of the flowers and it was only evadney's observant eye and presence of mind that had saved his life no one in the house could make a tourniquet and she sat with the child on her knee while a doctor was being fetched keeping him quiet as by a miracle and stopping the hemorrhage with the pressure of her thumb not even his parents daring to relieve her since diavolo had never been known to be still so long in his life with anybody else she held him till the operation of tying the artery was safely accomplished by which time mr diavolo was sufficiently exhausted to be good and go to sleep and then she quietly fainted but she was about again in time to catch him when he woke and keep him quiet and so by on wearied watching she prevented accidents until all danger was over diavolo afterward hurt his parents praise her in unmeasured terms to her parents one day in her absence she happened to return while they were still in the room and being doubtless wide awake to the advantages of such a connection he took the opportunity of promising solemnly in the presence of such respectable witnesses to marry her as soon as he was able she had added the word tourniquet to her vocabulary during this time and having looked it up in the dictionary she requested the doctor to be so good as to teach her to make one while doing so the doctor became interested in his silent intelligent pupil and it ended in his teaching her all that a young lady could learn of bandaging of antidotes to poisons of what to do in case of many possible accidents and also of nursing theoretically but this was not a solitary instance of the quiet power of the girl which already compelled even elderly gentlemen much overworked and self-absorbed to sacrifice themselves in her service end of chapter two chapter three of the heavenly twins this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the heavenly twins by Sarah Grand chapter three it is a notable thing that in almost every instance it was her father's influence which forced Avadni to draw conclusions in regard to life quite unlike any of his own and very distasteful to him he was the most conservative of men and yet he was continually setting her mind off at a tangent in search of premises upon which to found ultra-liberal conclusions his primitive theories about women and all that they are good for for one thing differed so materially from the facts as she observed them every day formed a constant mental stimulus to which her busy brain was greatly indebted women should confine their attention to housekeeping he remarked once when the talk about the higher education of women first began to irritate elderly gentlemen it is all they are fit for is it said Avadni yes and they don't know arithmetic enough to do that properly don't they why she asked because they have no brains he answered but some women have been clever she ventured seriously yes of course exceptional women but you can't argue from exceptional women then ordinary women have no brains and cannot learn arithmetic she concluded precisely he answered irritably such signs of intelligence always did irritate him somehow Avadni found food for reflection in these remarks she had done a certain amount of arithmetic herself in the schoolroom and had never found it difficult but then she had not gone far enough perhaps and she went at once to get a calenso or a barnard smith to see she found them more fascinating when she attacked them of her own free will and with all her intelligence then she had done when necessity in the shape of her governess forced her to pay them some attention and she went through them both in a few weeks at odd times and then asked her father's advice about a book on advanced mathematics advanced mathematics he exclaimed can you keep accounts i don't know she answered doubtfully then what is this nonsense about advanced mathematics oh i have finished barnard smith and i thought i should like to go on she explained now isn't that like your sex he observed smiling at his own superiority you pick up things with a parrot like sharpness but haven't intelligence enough to make any practical application of them a woman closely resembles a parrot in her mental processes and in the use she makes of fine phrases which she does not understand to reduce an effect of cleverness such as advanced mathematics Avadni bent her brow and let him ruminate a little in infinite self-content then asked abruptly can men keep accounts who have never seen accounts kept no of course not he answered seeing in this a new instance of feminine imbecility and laughing ah she observed then added thoughtfully as she moved away i should like to see how accounts are kept she never had any more conversation with her father upon this subject but from that time forwards mathematics which had before been only an incident in the way of lessons became an interest in life and a solid part of her education but although she found she could do arithmetic without any great difficulty it never occurred to her either that her father could be wrong or that there might be in herself the making of an exceptional woman the habit of love and respect kept her attention from any point which would have led to judgment upon her father and she was too unconscious of herself as a separate unit to make personal application of anything as yet her mind at this time like the hold of a ship with a general cargo was merely being stored with the raw materials which were to be distributed over her whole life and turned by degrees to many purposes useful beautiful not impossibly detestable but that remark of her father's about all that women are fit for which she kept well watered from time to time with other conventional expressions of a contemptuous kind was undoubtedly the seed of much more than a knowledge of the higher mathematics and it was that which set her mind off on a long and patient inquiry into the condition and capacity of women and made her in the end of the 19th century essentially herself but she did not begin her inquiry of set purpose she was not even conscious of the particular attention she paid to the subject she had no foregone conclusion to arrive at no wish to find evidence in favour of the woman which would prove the man wrong only coming across so many sneers at the incapacity of women she fell insensibly into the habit of asking why the question to begin with was always why are women such inferior beings but by degrees as her reading extended it changed its form and then she asked herself doubtfully are women such inferior beings a position which carried her in front of her father at once by a hundred years and led her rapidly on to the final conclusion that women had originally no congenital defect of inferiority and that although they have still much to make up it now rests with themselves to be inferior or not as they choose she had an industrious habit of writing what she thought about the work she studied and there is an interesting record still in existence of her course of reading between the ages of 12 and 19 it consists of one thick volume on the title page of which she had written roundly but without flourish commonplace book and the date the first entries are made in a careful unformed childish hand and with diffidence evidently but they became rapidly decided both in calligraphy and tone as she advanced the handwriting is small and cramped but the latter probably with a view to economy of space and it is always clear and neat there are few erasers or mistakes of grammar or spelling even from the first and little tautology but she makes no attempt at literary style or elegance of expression still all that she says is impressive and probably on that account she chooses the words best calculated to express her meaning clearly and concisely and undoubtedly her meaning is always either a settled conviction or an honest endeavor to arrive at one it is the honesty in fact that is so impressive she never thinks of trying to shine in the composition of words there was no idea of budding authorship in her mind she had no more consciousness of purpose in her writing than she had in her pinging when she sang about the place the one was as involuntary as the other and the outcome of similar sensations it pleased her to write and it pleased her to sing and she did both when the impulse came upon her she must however have had considerable natural facility of expression writing seems always to have been her best mode of communication she was shy from the first in conversation but bold to a fault with her pen some of the criticism she wrote in her commonplace book are quite exhaustive most of them are temperate although she does give way occasionally to bursts of fiery indignation at things which outrage her sense of justice but the general characteristic is a marked originality not only in her point of view but also in the use she makes of quite unpromising materials in fact the most notable part of the record is the proof it contains that all the arguments upon which she formed her opinions were found in the enemy's works alone she had drawn her own conclusions but after having done so as it happened she had the satisfaction of finding confirmation strong in john stewart mill on the subjection of women which she came across by accident an accident by the way for which lady adeline hamilton wells was responsible she brought the book to frailing gay and forgot it when she went home and a badney happening to find it throwing about took charge of it read it with avidity and found for herself a world of thought in which she could breathe freely the vicar of wakefield was one of her early favourites she read it several times and makes mention of it twice in her commonplace book her first notice of it is a childish little synopsis very quaint in its unconscious irony but interesting principally from the fact that she was struck even then by the point upon which she afterwards became so strong the vicar she says was a good man and very fond of his wife and family and they were very fond of him but his wife was queer and could only read a little and he never taught her to improve herself although he had books and was learned footnote this is the point alluded to he had two daughters who were spiteful and did not like other girls to be pretty they had bad taste too and wanted to go to church overdressed and thought it finer to ride a plow horse than walk it does not say that they ever read anything either if they had they would have known better there is a very nasty man in the book called squire thornhill and a nice one called sir william thornhill who was his uncle sir william marry sofia and squire thornhill marries olivia although he does not intend to olivia was a horrid deceitful girl and it served her right to get such a husband they have a brother called moses who used to talk philosophy with his father at dinner and once sold a cow for a gross of green spectacles a gross is twelve dozen of course they were all annoyed but the vicar himself was cheated by the same man when he went to sell the horse he seemed to think a great deal of knowing latin and greek but it was not much used to him then it was funny that he should be conceded about what he knew himself and not want his wife to know anything he said to her once i never dispute your abilities to make a goose pie and i beg your leave argument to me which he might have thought rude but perhaps she was not a lady as ladies do not make goose pies i forgot though they had lost all their money they had great troubles and the vicar was put in prison he was very ill but preached to the prisoners and everybody loved him i like the vicar of wakefield very much and if i cannot find another book as nice i shall read it again turned gentle hermit is silly i suppose punch took edwin and angelina out of it to laugh at them quite three years must have elapsed before she again mentions the vicar of wakefield and in the meantime she had been reading a fair variety of books but for the most part under schoolroom supervision carefully selected for her some however she had chosen for herself during the holidays when discipline was relaxed but it was a fault which she had to confess and she does so always honestly loose life of girta was one of these she wrote a glowing description of it at the end of which she says i found the book on a sofa in the drawing room and began it without thinking and read and read until i'd nearly finished it quite forgetting to ask leave but of course i went at once to tell father as soon as i thought of it mother was there too and inclined to scold but father frowned and said let her alone it will do her no harm she won't understand it i asked if i might finish it and he said oh yes impatiently i think he wanted to get rid of me and i am sorry i interrupted him at an inconvenient time mother often does not agree with father but she always gives in very often she is right however and he is wrong last week she did not want us to go out one day because she was sure it would rain but he did not think so and said we had better go it did rain poured and we got wet through and have had colds ever since but when we came in mother scolded me for saying you see you were right she said i should be saying at all yonsel next in a nasty jeering way as the boys do which really means rejoicing because somebody else is wrong and is not generous i hope i shall never come to that but i know if i am ever sure of a thing being right which somebody else thinks is wrong it won't matter what it is or who it is i shall not give in i don't see how i could her pen seldom ran away with her into personal matters like these in the early part of the book but from the first she was apt to be beguiled occasionally by the pleasure of perceiving a powerful stimulant under the influence of which everything is lost sight of but the point perceived she had never to fight a daily and exhausting battle for her private opinions as talkative people have simply because she rarely if ever expressed an opinion but her father stood ready always a post of resistance to innovation upon which she could sharpen the claws of her conclusions silently whenever they required it when she next mentions the vicar of wakefield she says expressly i do not remember what i wrote about it the first time i read it and i will not look to see until i have written what i think now because i should like to know if i still agree with myself as i was then and it is interesting to note how very much she does agree with herself as she was then the feeling in fact is the same but it has passed from her heart to her head and been resolved by the process into positive opinion held with conscious knowledge and delivered with greatly improved power of expression the vicar of wakefield makes me think a good deal she continues but there is no order in my thoughts there is however one thing in the book that strikes me first and foremost and above all others which is that the men were educated and the women were ignorant it is not to be supposed that the women preferred to be ignorant and therefore i presume they were not allowed the educational advantages upon which the men prided themselves the men must accordingly have withheld these advantages by main force yet they do not scorn to sneer at the consequences of their injustice there is a sneer implied in the vicar's remark about his own wife she could read any english book without much spelling that her ignorance was not the consequence of incapacity is proved by the evidence which follows of her intelligence in other matters had mrs primrose been educated she might have continued less lovable than the vicar but she would probably have been wiser the vicar must always have been conscious of her defects but had never apparently thought of a remedy nor does he dream of preventing a repetition of the same defects in his daughters by providing them with a better education he takes their unteachableness for granted remarking complacently that an hour of recreation was taken up in innocent mirth between my wife and daughters and in philosophical arguments between my son and me as if innocent mirth were as much as he could reasonably expect from such inferior beings as a wife and daughters must necessarily be the average school girl of today is a child of light on the subject of her own sex compared with the gentle vicar and incapable even before her education is half over of the envy and meanness which the latter thinks it kindest to take a humorous view of and of the disingenuousness at which he also smiles as the inevitable outcome of feminine inferiority at least i never met a girl in my position who would not have admired mrs wilmott's beauty nor do i know one who would not answer her father frankly however embarrassing the question might be if he asked her opinion of a possible lover the next entry in the book is on the subject of mrs cordel's curtain lectures and like most of the others it merits attention from the unexpected view she takes of the position it does not strike her as being humorous but pathetic she feels the misery of it and she had already begun to hold that human misery is either a thing to be remedied or a sacred subject to be dwelt on in silence and she considers mrs cordel entirely with a view to finding a cure for her case the cordels were petty tradespeople she says respectable in their own position but hardly lovable according to our ideas mr cordel with meek persistency goes out to amuse himself alone when his day's work is done mrs cordel's day's work never is done she has the wearing charge of a large family and the anxiety of making both ends meet on a paltry income which entails much self-denial and sordid parsimony but is conscientiously done if not cheerfully nevertheless it is mr cordel however who grumbles making no allowances for extra pressure of work on washing days when she's too busy to hash the cold mutton the rule of her life is weariness and worry from morning till night and for relaxation in the evening she must sit down and mend the children's clothes and even when that is done she goes to bed with the certainty of being roused from her hard-earned rest by a husband who brings a sickening odor of bad tobacco and spirits home with him and naturally her temper suffers she knows nothing of love and sympathy she has no pleasurable interest in life fatigue and worry are succeeded by profound disheartening one can imagine that while she was young the worn garments she was won't amend during those long lonely evenings were often wet with tears the dullness must have been deadly and dullness additive fatigue time after time ended at last not in tears but in peevish irritation ebullitions of spleen and ineffectual resistance the woman was thoroughly embittered and the man had to pay the penalty whatever pleasure there might have been in their joint lives he had secured for himself leaving her to stagnate for want of a little variety to keep her feelings flowing wholesomely and she did stagnate dutifully but she was to blame for it had she gone out and amused herself with other wives similarly situated and had tobacco and beer if she liked them every evening it would have been better for herself and her husband there must have been some system in a bad news reading for the naggletons came immediately after mrs. cordel and are dismissed curtly enough vulgar ill-bred lower class people she calls them objectionable to contemplate from every point of view but a book which should enlighten the class whom it describes on the subject of their own bad manners we don't nag she owed her acquaintance with the next two books she mentions to the indirect instigation of her father and she must have read them when she was about 18 and emancipated from schoolroom supervision but not yet fairly ended upon the next chapter of her existence for they are among the last she notices before she came out the date is fixed by an entry which appears on a subsequent page with the note i was presented at court today by my mother after this entry life becomes more interesting than literature evidently for the book ceases to be a record of reading and thought with an occasional note on people and circumstances and becomes just the opposite vis a diary of events interspersed with sketches of character and only a rare allusion to literature but judging by the number and variety and the careful record kept of the work she read the six months or so immediately preceding her presentation must have been a time of the greatest intellectual activity her father's influence being as usual often apparent as primary instigator once when they were having coffee out on the lawn after dinner he began a discussion in her hearing about books with another gentleman who was staying in the house and in the course of it he happened to praise rogerick random and tom jones eloquently he said they were superior in their own line to anything which the present day has produced they are true to life in every particular he maintained and not only to the life of those times but of all time in fact you feel as you read that it is not fiction but human nature itself that you are studying and there is an education in moral philosophy on every page avadney was much impressed and being anxious to know what an education in moral philosophy might be she got rogerick random and tom jones out of the library when she went in that evening and took them to her own room to study they were the two books already referred to as being among the last she read just before she came out they did not please her but she waited through them from beginning to end conscientiously nevertheless and then she made her remarks of rogerick random she wrote the hero is a kind of king can do no wrong young man if a thing were not right in itself he acted as if the pleasure of doing it sanctified it to his use sufficiently after a career of vice in which he revels without any sense of personal degradation he marries an amiable girl named narsissa and everyone seems to expect that such a union of vice and virtue would be productive of the happiest consequences in point of fact he should have married miss williams for whom he was in every respect a suitable mate if anything miss williams was the better of the two for rogerick sinned in weak wantonness or she only did so of necessity they repent together but she is married to an unsavory man servant named strap as a reward while rogerick considers himself entitled to the peerless narsissa miss williams moreover becomes narsissa's confidential friend and the whole disgraceful arrangement is made possible by narsissa herself who calmly accepts these two pressures associates at their own valuation and admits them to the closest intimacy without any knowledge of their true characters and early lives the fine flavor of a real life in the book seems to me to be of the putrid kind which some palates relish perhaps but it cannot be wholesome and it may be poisonous the moral is be as vicious as you please but virtue tom jones she dismissed with greater contempt if possible another young man she wrote steeped in vice although acquainted with virtue he also marries a spotless heroine such men marrying are a danger to the community at large the two books taken together show well the self-interest and injustice of men the fatal ignorance and slavish apathy of women and it may be good to know these things but it is not agreeable the ventilation of free discussion would doubtless have been an advantage to a bad knee at this impressionable period when she was still as it were more an intellectual than a human being traveling upon her head rather than upon her heart so to speak and one cannot help speculating about the probable modification it would have wrought in some of her opinions unfortunately however her family was one of those in which the clouture is rigorously applied when any attempt is made to introduce ideas which are not already old and accustomed it was as if her people were satisfied that by enforcing silence they could prevent thought end of chapter three recorded by Jenny Wildman book one chapter four of the heavenly twins this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Devorah Allen the heavenly twins by Sarah G book one chapter four it is interesting to trace the steps by which Evadney advanced one item of knowledge accidentally acquired compelling her to seek another as in the case of some disease mentioned in a story book the nature of which she could not comprehend without studying the construction of the organ it affected but haphazard seems to have determined her pursuits much more than design as a rule some people in afterlife who liked her views said they saw the guiding hand of providence directing her course from the first but those who opposed her said it was the devil and others again in idleness or charity or the calm neutrality of indifference set it all down to the inevitable a fashionable first cause at this time which is both comprehensive convenient and inoffensive since it may mean anything and so suits itself to everybody's prejudices but she certainly made her first acquaintance with anatomy and physiology without design of her own her mother sent her up to a lumber room one day to hunt through an old box of books for a story she wanted her to read to the children and the box happened to contain some medical works which Evadney peeped into during her search a plate first attracted her attention and then she read a little to see what the plate meant and then she read a little more because the subject fascinated her and the lucid language of a great scientific man certain of his facts satisfied her and carried her on insensibly she continued standing until one leg tired then she rested on the other then she sat on the hard edge of the box and finally she subsided onto the floor in the dust where she was found hours later still reading my dear child where have you been her mother exclaimed irritably when at last she appeared I sent you to get a book to read to the children there it is mother the gold thread Evadney answered but I cannot read to the children until after their tea they were at their lessons this morning and we are all going out this afternoon she had neither forgotten the children nor the time they wanted their book which was eminently characteristic she never did forget other people's interests however much she might be absorbed by the pleasure of her own pursuits and I found three other books mother that I should like to have may I she continued they are all about our bones and brains and the circulation of the blood and digestion it says in one of them that muriatic acid the chemical agent by which the stomach dissolves the food is probably obtained from muriate of soda which is common salt contained in the blood isn't that interesting and it says the pleasure not excitement you know is the result of the action of living organs and it goes on to explain it shall I read it to you my dear child what nonsense have you got hold of now Mrs. Frailing exclaimed laughing it is all here mother Evadney remonstrated tapping her books do look at them Mrs. Frailing turned over a few pages with dainty fingers tracing from without inward the various coverings of the brain are she read in one the superior extremity consists of the shoulder the arm the forearm and the hand she saw in another Dr. Harley also confirms the opinion of Monsieur Chavaux that the sugar is not destroyed in any appreciable quantity during its passage through the tissues she learned from the third oh how nasty she ejaculated alluding to the dust on the cover and what a state you are in yourself you seem to have a perfect mania for grubbing up old books what do you want with them you cannot possibly understand them why I can't it is all vanity you know here take them away but mother I want to keep them they can't do me any harm if I don't understand them you really are tiresome Evadney her mother rejoined it is quite bad taste to be so persistent I am sorry mother I apologize but I can read them I suppose as you don't see anything objectionable in them don't you see dear child that I am trying to write a letter how do you suppose I can do so while you stand there chattering at my elbow you won't understand the books but you are too obstinate for anything and you had better take them and try I don't expect to hear anything more about them she added complacently as she resumed her letter nor did she but she felt the effect of them strongly in after years when Evadney went out for a ride with three of her sisters that afternoon her mind was full to overflowing of her morning studies and she would like to have shared such interesting information with them but they discouraged her isn't it curious she began our skulls are not all in one piece when we're born I call it simply nasty said Julia she was the one who screamed at a mouse you'll be a bore if you don't mind cried Evelyn who monopolized the conversation as a rule Barbara politely requested her to sure up a word of the boys which she permitted herself to borrow in the exuberance of her spirits and the sanctity of private life whenever Evadney threatened as on the present occasion to be too kind Evadney turned back then and left them not because they vexed her but because she wanted to have her head to the wind and her thick brown hair blown back out of her eyes and full leisure to reflect upon her last acquisition as she cantered home happily end of book one chapter four book one chapter five of the heavenly twins this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Devorah Allen the heavenly twins by Sarah G book one chapter five Evadney was never a great reader in the sense of being omnivorous in her choice of books but she became a very good one she always had a solid book in hand and some standard work of fiction also but she read both with the utmost deliberation and with intellect clear and senses unaffected by anything after studying anatomy and physiology she took up pathology as a matter of course and naturally went on from thence to prophylactics and therapeutics but was quite unharmed because she made no personal application of her knowledge as the coarser mind masculine of the ordinary medical student is apt to do she read of all the diseases to which the heart is subject and thought of them familiarly as cardiac affections without fancying that she had one of them and she obtained an extraordinary knowledge of the digestive processes and their ailments without realizing that her own might ever be affected she possessed in fact a mind of exceptional purity as well as of exceptional strength one to be enlightened by knowledge not corrupted but had it been otherwise she must certainly have suffered in consequence of the effect of the curiously foolish limitations imposed upon her by those who had charge of her conventional education subjects were surrounded by mystery which should have been explained an impossible ignorance was the object aimed at and so long as no word was spoken on either side it was supposed to be attained the risk of making mysteries for an active intellect to feed upon was never even considered nor did anyone perceive the folly of withholding positive knowledge which when properly conveyed is the true source of healthy mindedness from a child whose intelligent perception was already sufficiently keen to require it principles were dealt out to her for one thing with a generous want of definition which must have made them fatal to all progress had she been able to take them intact her mother's favorite and most inclusive dictum alone that everything is for the best and all things work together for good should have forced her to a matter of fact acceptance of wickedness as a thing inevitable which it would be a waste of time to oppose since it was bound to resolve itself into something satisfactory in the end like the objectionable refuse which can be converted by ingenious processes into an excellent substitute for butter but she was saved from the stultification of such a position by finding it impossible to reconcile it practically with a constant opposition which she found herself at the same time and joined to oppose to so many things if everything is for the best it appeared to her clearly we cannot logically oppose ourselves to anything and there must accordingly be two trinities in ethics good better best and bad worse worse which it is impossible to condense into one comprehensive axiom but most noticeably prominent to her credit through all this period are the same desirable characteristics vis that provisional acceptance already noticed of what she was taught by those whom she delighted to honor and obey and the large minded absence of prejudice which enabled her to differ from them when she saw good cause without antagonism drop the subject when you do not agree there is no need to be bitter because you know you are right was the maximum she used in ordinary social intercourse but she was at the same time forming principles to be acted upon in opposition to everybody when occasion called for action another noticeable point too was the way in which her mind returned from every excursion into no matter what abstruse region of research to the position of women her original point of departure withholding education from women was the original sin of man she concludes mind as creator appealed to her less than mind as recorder reasoner and ruler and for one gem of poetry or other beauty of purely literary value which she quotes there are 50 records of principles of action the acquisition of knowledge was her favorite pastime her principal pleasure in life and there were no doubts of her own ability to disturb her so long as there was no self-consciousness unfortunately however for her tranquility the self-consciousness had to come she approached the verge of womanhood she was made to do up her hair she was encouraged to think of being presented coming out and having a home of her own eventually her liberty of action was sensibly curtailed but all supervision in the matter of her mental pursuits was withdrawn she had received the accustomed education for a girl in her position which her parents held without knowing it themselves perhaps to consist for the most part in being taught to know better than to read anything which they would have considered objectionable but the end of the supervision which should have been a joy to her brought the first sudden sense of immensity and was chilling she perceived that the world is large and strong and that she was small and weak that knowledge is infinite capacity indifferent life short and then came the inevitable moment she does not say what caused the first overwhelming sense of self in her own case but the change it brought is evident and the disheartening doubts with which it was accompanied are expressed she picks her flower in the crannied wall and realizes her own limitations but if i could understand what you are root and all and all and all i should know what god and man is and from this time forward there is less literature and more life in the commonplace book end of book one chapter five chapter six of the heavenly twins this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Laura Riley the heavenly twins by Sarah Grand chapter six Mr. and Lady Adeline Hamilton Wells with the inevitable twins came constantly to frailing gay while Avadne was in the school room and generally during the holidays that she might be at liberty to look after the twins whose moral obliquities she was supposed to be able to control better than anybody else they once told their mother that they liked Avadne because she was so good and Lady Adeline had a delicious moment of hope if the twins had begun to appreciate goodness they would be better themselves directly she was thinking when Diavolo exclaimed we can shock her easier than anybody and hope died prematurely they had been a source of interest and also of some concern to Avadne from the first she took a grave view of their vagaries and entertained doubts on the subject of their salvation should an all wise providence catch them peering into a sewer resolve itself into a poisonous gas and cut them off suddenly a fate which had actually overtaken a small brother of her own who was not a good little boy either a fact which was the cause of much painful reflection to Avadne she understood all about the drain and the poisonous gas but she could not fit in the all wise providence acting only for the best which was introduced as a primary agent in the sad affair by their dear mr. Campbell as her mother called him in a most touching and strengthening discourse he delivered from the pulpit on the subject if Benny were naughty and Benny was naughty beyond all hope of redemption according to the books there could be no doubt about that for he not only committed one but each and every sin sufficient in itself for condemnation all in one day too when he could and twice over if there were time he disobeyed orders he fought cats he stole apples he told lies in fact he preferred to tell lies truth had no charm for him and all these things he was in the habit of doing regularly to the best of his ability when he was cut off and how such an end could be all for the best if the wicked must perish and it is not good to perish was the puzzle there was something she could not grasp of a contradictory nature in it all that tormented her the doctor in a purgatory might have been a help but she had not heard of it she told the twins the story of Benny's sad end once in the orthodox way as a warning but the warning was the only part of it which failed to impress them and do you know she said solemnly there were some green apples found in his pockets after he was dead actually what a pity Diavolo exclaimed if they had been found in his stomach it would have been so much more satisfactory how did he get the apples off the tree or out of the storeroom I don't know said Abadney they wouldn't have green apples in the storeroom Angelica thought oh yes they might Diavolo considered those big cooking fellows you know they're green enough but they're not nice said Angelica no but you don't think of that till you've got them was the outcome of Diavolo's experience is your storeroom on the ground floor he asked Abadney no she answered is there a creeper outside the window he pursued no creepers won't grow because big lime tree hangs it the children exchanged glances I shouldn't have made that room a storeroom said Angelica lime trees bring flies there's something flies like on the leaves but any tree will bring flies if you smear the leaves with sweet stuff said Diavolo you remember that copper beach outside papa's dressing room window Angelica yes she said thoughtfully he had to turn out of his dressing room this summer he couldn't stand them but was binny often caught Abadney Diavolo asked often she said and punished always but I suppose he had generally eaten the apples Angelica suggested anxiously it's better to eat them at once sighed Diavolo did you say he did everything he was told not to yes I expect when he was told not to do a thing he could not think of anything else until he had done it said Angelica and now he's in heaven Diavolo speculated looking up through the window with big bright eyes pathetically the twins thought a good deal about heaven in their own way Lady Aniline did not like them to be talked to on the subject they were indeed fatigable explorers and it was popularly supposed that only the difficulty of being present at an inquest on their own bodies which they would have thoroughly enjoyed had kept them so far from trying to obtain a glimpse of the next world they discovered the storeroom at Frailingay half an hour after they had discussed the improving details of binny's exciting career and had found it quite easy of access by means of the available lime tree they both suffered a good deal that night and they thought of binny but there's nothing in our pockets that's one comfort Diavolo exclaimed suddenly to the astonishment of his mother who was sitting up with him Angelica he'd a sigh of satisfaction Avadne's patience with the twins was wonderful she always took charge of them cheerfully on wet days and in other times of trouble and managed them with infinite tact how do you do it my dear Lady Aniline asked do you talk to them and tell them stories no said Avadne I don't talk much I just don't lose sight of them or interfere if I can possibly help it the twins had no reverence for anything or anybody one day they were in Avadne's little sitting room which overlooked the courtyard it was an antechamber to her bedroom and peculiarly her own by right of primogeniture nobody ever thought of going there without her special permission except of course the twins but even they assumed hypocritical errors of innocent apology for accidental intrusion when they wanted to make things pleasant for themselves on this particular occasion Avadne was sitting beside her little work table busy with her needle and the twins were standing there together looking out of the window there's papa said Diavolo he's going for a ride said Angelica doesn't he mount clearly Diavolo observed he'd be safer in a bath chair not if we were wheeling him Angelica suggested with a chuckle what shall we do yawned Diavolo shall we fight yes let's said Angelica you must do no such thing Avadne interfered not fight why Angelica demanded we must fight you know Diavolo asserted I don't see that said Avadne why should you fight it's good for the circulation of the blood said Angelica warms a body you know and there's the property to said Diavolo we've got to fight for that Avadne did not understand so Angelica kindly explained you see I'm the eldest but Diavolo is a boy so he gets the property because of the entail and we neither of us think it fair so we fight for it and whichever wins is to have it I won the last battle so it's mine just now but Diavolo may win it back if we fight again before papa dies that's why he wants to fight now I expect yes Diavolo candidly confessed but we generally fight when we see papa go out for a ride because you are afraid he will catch you and punish you as you deserve if he's at home I suppose you bad children not at all said Angelica it's because he looks so unsafe on a horse you never know what'll happen it's kind of a last chance said Diavolo and that makes it exciting but wouldn't you be very sorry if your father died Avadne said the twins looked at each other doubtfully should we Diavolo said to Angelica I wonder said Angelica one wet day they chose to paint in Avadne's room because they could not go out she found pictures and got everything ready for them good naturedly and then they sat themselves down at a little table opposite each other but the weather affected their spirits and made them both fractious they wanted the same picture to begin with and only settled the question by demolishing it in their attempts to snatch it from each other then there was only one left between them but happily they remembered that artists sometimes work at the same picture and it further occurred to them that it would be an original method or funny as they phrased it for one of them to work at it wrong side up so Angelica dubbed the sky blue on her side of the table and Diavolo flung green on the fields from his they had large genial mouths at that time indefinite noses threatening to turn up a little and bright dark eyes quick glancing but with no particular expression in them no symptom either of love or hate nothing but living interest it was pretty to see Diavolo's fair head touching Angelica's dark one across the little table but when it came too close Angelica would dump it sharply out of the way with her own which was apparently the harder of the two and Diavolo would put up his hand and rub the spot absently he was too thoroughly accustomed to such sisterly attentions to be all together conscious of them the weather darkened down I wish I could see he grumbled get out of your own light said Angelica how can I get out of my own light when there isn't any light to get out of Angelica put her paintbrush in her mouth and looked up at the window thoughtfully let's make it into a song she said let's said Diavolo intend upon making blue and yellow into green no light have we and that we do resent and learning this the weather will relent repent relent amen Angelica sang Diavolo paused with his brush halfway to his mouth and nodded intelligently now said Angelica and they repeated the parody together Angelica making a perfect second to Diavolo's exquisite treble Avadne looked up from her work surprised her own voice was contralto but it would have taken her a week to learn to sing a second from the notes and she had never dreamt of making one I didn't know you could sing she said oh yes we can sing Angelica answered cheerfully we've decided talent for music Angelica can make a song in a moment said Diavolo let me paint your nose green Avadne you can paint mine if you like said Angelica no I shan't I shall paint my own no you paint mine and I'll paint yours Angelica suggested well both together then Diavolo answered honest engine Angelica agreed and they set to work Avadne sat with her embroidery in her lap and watched them their faces would have to be washed in any case and they might as well be washed for an acre as for an inch of paint she never nagged with don't do this and don't do that about everything if their offenses could be summed up and wiped out in some such way all at once we'll sing you an anthem someday Angelica presently promised why not now said Avadne the spirit does not move us Diavolo answered but you may forget said Avadne we never forget our promises Angelica protested as proudly as was possible with a green nose nor did they curiously enough they made a point of keeping their word but in their own way and this one was kept in due course the time they chose was when a certain Grand Duke was staying in the house they had quite captivated him and he expressed a wish to hear them sing shall we said Diavolo we will said Angelica not because he's a prince but because we promised Avadne an anthem and we might as well do it now she added with true British independence the prince chuckled what shall it be said Diavolo settling himself at the piano he always played the accompaniments papa I think said Angelica what is papa lady out of line asked anxiously very nice or you wouldn't have married him answered Angelica go on Diavolo if you sing flat I'll slap you if you're in pertinent miss I'll put you out Diavolo retorted go on said Avadne sharply fearing a fight but to everybody's intense relief the prince laughed and then the twins distinguished manners appeared in a new and agreeable light papa papa papa they sang papa says that we that we that we are little devils and so we are we are we are and ever shall be world without end I am a chip Diavolo trilled exquisitely I am a chip thou tart a chip thou tart a chip Angelica responded we are both chips they concluded harmoniously chips of the old old block and as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen you sang that last phrase flat you pulp cried Angelica I can't both sing and play Diavolo protested you'll say you can't eat and breathe next she retorted giving his hair a tug what did you do that for he demanded just to awaken you up she answered are they always like this the prince asked much edified this is nothing groaned mr. Hamilton wells nothing if it is not genius the prince suggested gracefully the ineffectual genius of the 19th century I fancy which betrays itself by strange incongruities and contrasts of a violent kind but is otherwise unproductive mrs. Orton beg whispered to mr. frailing unconsciously lady Adeline looked up I could not help hearing she said oh Adeline I am sorry mrs. Orton beg exclaimed I thank you said lady Adeline sighing courtly phrases are pleasant plums even to latter-day palates which are losing all taste for such dainties but they are not nourishing I would rather know my children to be merely naughty and to spend my time in trying to make them good them falsely flatter myself that there is anything great in them and indulge them on that plea until I had thoroughly confirmed them in faults which I ought to have been rigorously repressing you're right there said mr. frailing but all the same you'll be able to make a good deal of that boy or I'm much mistaken and as for Angelica why when she is at the head of an establishment of her own she will require all her smartness but teach her housekeeping lady Adeline that is the thing for her Avadhini was sitting near her father not taking part in the conversation but attending to it and lady Adeline happening to look at her this moment saw something which gave her pause to ponder Avadhini's face recalled somewhat the type of old Egypt Egypt with an intellect added her eyes were long and apparently narrow but not so in reality a trick she had of holding them half shut habitually gave a false impression of their size and bailed the penetration of their glance also which was exceptionally keen in moments of emotion however she would open them to the full unexpectedly and then the effect was startling and peculiar and it was one of these transient flashes which surprised lady Adeline when mr. frailing made that last remark it was a mere gleam but it revealed Avadhini to lady Adeline as a flash of lightning might have revealed a familiar landscape on a dark night she saw what she expected to see but all transformed and she saw something beyond which she did not expect and could neither comprehend nor forget so far she had only thought of Avadhini as a nice quiet little thing with nothing particular in her from that evening however she suspended her opinion suspecting something but waiting to know more Avadhini was then in her 18th year but not yet out end of chapter six