Sublime

It is a sardonic parody of the eternally fixed desire Keats described in his Ode on a Grecian Urn – Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

This was Bethesda Chapel, as fixed in time’s flow as a boulder in a river: Aldleigh ran past it, and round it, and could never change it. Above the door a narrow plaque read 1888, and beyond the bristled threshold mat, 1888 persisted. All the dreadful business of the modern world – its exchange rates, tournaments, profanities, publications,

hardscrabble

aesthete

She was no match for his level of aspiration, and eventually, reluctantly, he had accepted this slow moderation of the burning inside of him and succumbed to routine.

utilitarian

vicissitudes

inchoate.