DOI article:
Leverson, Ada: The quest of sorrow
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27811#0330
The Quest of Sorrow
326
appearance. I have a face that rarely passes unnoticed (I suppose
a man may admit, without conceit, that he is not repulsive), and
the exclamation, " What a beautiful boy ! " is one that I have
been accustomed to hear from my earliest childhood to the present
time.
I might, indeed, have known the sordid and wearing cares con-
nected with financial matters, for my father was morbidly economical
with regard to me. But, when I was only seventeen, my uncle
died, leaving me all his property, when I instantly left my father's
house (I am bound to say, in justice to him, that he made not the
smallest objection) and took the rooms I now occupy, which I
was able to arrange in harmony with my temperament. In their
resolute effort to be neither uninterestingly commonplace nor
conventionally bizarre (I detest—do not you ?—the ready-made
exotic) but at once simple and elaborate, severe and florid, they
are an interesting result of my complex aspirations, and the
astonishing patience of a bewildered decorator. (I think every-
thing in a room should not be entirely correct ; and I had some
trouble to get a marble mantel-piece of a sufficiently debased
design.) Here I was able to lead that life of leisure and con-
templation for which I was formed and had those successes—social
and artistic—that now began to pall upon me.
The religious doubts, from which I am told the youth of the
middle classes often suffers, were, again, denied me. I might
have had some mental conflicts, have revelled in the sense of
rebellion, have shed bitter tears when my faiths crumbled to
ashes. But I can never be insensible to incense ; and there
must, I feel, be something organically wrong about the man who
is not impressed by the organ. I love religious rites and cere-
monies, and on the other hand, I was an agnostic at five years old.
Also, I don't think it matters. So here there is no chance for me.
To
326
appearance. I have a face that rarely passes unnoticed (I suppose
a man may admit, without conceit, that he is not repulsive), and
the exclamation, " What a beautiful boy ! " is one that I have
been accustomed to hear from my earliest childhood to the present
time.
I might, indeed, have known the sordid and wearing cares con-
nected with financial matters, for my father was morbidly economical
with regard to me. But, when I was only seventeen, my uncle
died, leaving me all his property, when I instantly left my father's
house (I am bound to say, in justice to him, that he made not the
smallest objection) and took the rooms I now occupy, which I
was able to arrange in harmony with my temperament. In their
resolute effort to be neither uninterestingly commonplace nor
conventionally bizarre (I detest—do not you ?—the ready-made
exotic) but at once simple and elaborate, severe and florid, they
are an interesting result of my complex aspirations, and the
astonishing patience of a bewildered decorator. (I think every-
thing in a room should not be entirely correct ; and I had some
trouble to get a marble mantel-piece of a sufficiently debased
design.) Here I was able to lead that life of leisure and con-
templation for which I was formed and had those successes—social
and artistic—that now began to pall upon me.
The religious doubts, from which I am told the youth of the
middle classes often suffers, were, again, denied me. I might
have had some mental conflicts, have revelled in the sense of
rebellion, have shed bitter tears when my faiths crumbled to
ashes. But I can never be insensible to incense ; and there
must, I feel, be something organically wrong about the man who
is not impressed by the organ. I love religious rites and cere-
monies, and on the other hand, I was an agnostic at five years old.
Also, I don't think it matters. So here there is no chance for me.
To