Now Adela was in the very best position for understanding
those faults of the working class which are ineradicable in any one
generation. She knew her husband, knew him better than ever now that
she regarded him from a distance; she knew 'Arry Mutimer; and now
she was getting to appreciate with a thoroughness impossible
hitherto, the monstrous gulf between men of that kind and cultured
human beings. She had, too, studied the children and the women of
New Wanley, and the results of such study were arranging themselves
in her mind. All unconsciously, Stella Westlake was cooling Adela's
zeal with every fervid word she uttered; Adela at times with
difficulty restrained herself from crying, 'But it is a mistake!
They have not these feelings you attribute to them. Such suffering
as you picture them enduring comes only of the poetry-fed soul at
issue with fate.' She could not as yet have so expressed herself,
but the knowledge was growing within her. For Adela was not by
nature a social enthusiast. When her heart leapt at Stella's chant,
it was not in truth through contagion of sympathy, but in admiration
and love of the noble woman who could thus think and speak.
Adela--and who will not be thankful for it?--was, before all
things, feminine; her true enthusiasms were personal.
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