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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"

"
No one has yet explained what actually happens when an irresistible force meets
the immovable post, though many have thought deeply, even as Dick thought. He
tried to assure himself that Maisie would be led in a few weeks by his mere
presence and discourse to a better way of thinking. Then he remembered much too
distinctly her face and all that was written on it.
"If I know anything of heads," he said, "there's everything in that face but
love. I shall have to put that in myself; and that chin and mouth won't be won
for nothing. But she's right. She knows what she wants, and she's going to get
it. What insolence! Me! Of all the people in the wide world, to use me! But
then she's Maisie. There's no getting over that fact; and it's good to see her
again. This business must have been simmering at the back of my head for years.
. . . She'll use me as I used Binat at Port Said. She's quite right. It will
hurt a little. I shall have to see her every Sunday,--like a young man courting
a housemaid. She's sure to come around; and yet--that mouth isn't a yielding
mouth. I shall be wanting to kiss her all the time, and I shall have to look at
her pictures,--I don't even know what sort of work she does yet,--and I shall
have to talk about Art,--Woman's Art! Therefore, particularly and perpetually,
damn all varieties of Art.


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