have one existence with him⁠—the happiness would be almost too great. That alone⁠—merely to be in his society⁠—would be sufficient reward for all the sacrifice she could make. It must be, but how?

Has anyone thought for an instant upon the extreme difficulty of knowing a person? Really to know him, or her, to speak in a friendly way, to visit and revisit, and converse without reserve, and become company with, and part of their group. Acquaintance is often difficult enough to acquire; to really come to know a stranger, or comparative stranger, is most difficult.

People’s entire destiny depends upon those whom they know. One’s friends lift one or depress one to their level. A genius is raised up to the skies, or struggles unnoticed in the grimy ranks accordingly as his acquaintances happen to be first-class or third-rate. Some men are fortunate from their youth, and are thrust forward upon the gilded shoulders of money and title till the world accepts them. So all-important is it on what level we begin life.

We cannot select our company. Our power in this matter is simply negative; we can avoid what is notoriously bad, but we cannot thrust ourselves in upon the good. A soldier may steadfastly refrain from the canteen, but he cannot invite himself to the officers’ mess.

The greatest difficulty in the world is to know people. How are you even to let them understand that you wish to know them⁠—which would often expedite the desired end very considerably? Reflect upon the vast multitude of people who enter and depart from London every day in 2,200 trains. How can you know any one of these?

There is a pretty woman in every train. This is a physiological fact which I have often observed, but how are you going to get introduced to them?

It is possible to be invited to the same dinner-party, to belong to the same club, the same hunt, to go so far as to salute whenever meeting, and yet not to know one another. The cordial greeting, the pressing invitation, the glad spirit is wanting. It is a nod and nothing more.

But for a woman to introduce herself to a man⁠—to select her acquaintance and her friend from the ranks of the other sex⁠—is it not almost impossible?

We live in little groups. These groups have not been formed upon any definite principle; they have grown up in the course of time, partly from family causes, partly from casual introductions, also from causes that defy analysis. Each of these little groups is complete in itself, and those outside it cannot get in. Observe a train, you will find that it runs upon rails; another train may be near, but cannot move itself upon those rails; each train has its metals. These groups remain in their grooves.

Yet the singularity of the thing is that although perseverance, application and admitted merit will not prevail to get an outsider into such a group, the merest outsider may enter at a moment’s notice by some little chance.

Women consequently marry inside this group, with someone with whom they have been brought into contact through family connections. Or else they leap, as it were, quite beyond the group, and are carried away by a total outsider accidentally met. If they do not belong to any group, and do not meet an outsider, then they have to continue unmarried. They cannot choose their friends, or their partners; they can refuse (the negative); they cannot select.

Some method is clearly required by which people without scandal or solecism might communicate with each other, and make it understood that they wish to be acquainted. At the present moment, even a man cannot ride up to a house and say, “Sir, I admire your niece (or your daughter). Permit me to visit you. So-and-so are my references. I await your reply after you have made inquiries.” But why not? It would be quite reasonable; people would soon agree to the custom.

However, the ladies would demand a corresponding right. Could they not be permitted to send a card with a few lithographed words in a conventional sentence amounting to a permission to visit them?

The very novelists, with all their ingenuity, have been troubled for ages to discover a means of introducing their characters to each other. Sometimes they cause their heroes to break a leg and be carried into a stranger’s house, where they are nursed, and win a heart. Or a horse runs away with the lady, who is gallantly rescued. In real life such events are as rare as legacies. A lady, in Boccaccio’s collection of stories, ingeniously uses the confessional as a means of securing a lover, showing that the difficulty was felt even then.

Half the flower-shows, the working-parties, the “causes” got up and pursued so zealously, are only supported because people unconsciously recognise in them a means of mixing with each other.

X

There was nothing in the position of Felise Goring or Martial Barnard to prevent their knowing each other. They were much in the same position. Felise depended upon her uncle, who possessed a comfortable house, the most beautiful grounds (laid out and planted by himself); who could provide a bountiful table, but could scarce summon up a coin. She had little beyond some fine pearls, once her mother’s. As for Barnard, he occupied a very large farm; his family had been once well-to-do, but he really had nothing. Outwardly he was a desirable match⁠—his family had had something of a county reputation⁠—financially speaking, he was undesirable. His education, his manners, his ideas, were much above his pocket. An impecunious pair; neither of them had anything to recommend them.

But there was no obstacle whatever in their position to prevent their knowing each other, except the insurmountable one that they did not know each other in the social sense. Their families had not visited; their connections did not belong to the same group. The houses were not more than three miles apart, but they

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