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She was born with a strong, vehement, impulsive nature, a nature both proud and sensitive, a nature whose tastes were passions, whose likings and whose aversions were of the most intense and positive character. Devoted as she always seemed to the mere practical and material, she had naturally a deep romance and enthusiasm of temperament which exceeded all that can be written in novels.
Now, I did not doubt that by these means, begun early, and applied unremittingly, intense associations of pain and pleasure, especially of pain, might be created, and might produce desires and aversions capable of lasting undiminished to the end of life. But there must always be something artificial and casual in associations thus produced.
So she took exemplary care of Violet, read aloud, warded off noises, bribed the brass band at the other side of the square, went up to see why Johnnie was crying, carried up her luncheon, waited on her assiduously, and succeeded so well, that by the time the carriage came round, the head was in a condition to be mended by fresh air. Mere driving out was one of Theodora's aversions.
But M. de Coralth inspired him with one of those inexplicable aversions which cannot be restrained "Eh! tell me if it's because we've drank champagne together before that you talk to me like that?" the young fellow retorted, savagely. It was only a random shot, but it reached home. The viscount seemed touched to the quick. "You hear that, Wilkie," said he.
Next day, at Thrales', Johnson fell foul of Gray, one of his pet aversions. Boswell denied that Gray was dull in poetry. "Sir," replied Johnson, "he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made people think him great. He was a mechanical poet." He proceeded to say that there were only two good stanzas in the Elegy.
Moreover, one may have an entirely unreasonable prejudice against the works of the particular dramatist. We all suffer from strange aversions in literary matters. There are readers of culture who find no pleasure in Borrow, and some nearly shriek at the mere name of Peacock and so on.
Now, I did not doubt that by these means, begun early, and applied unremittingly, intense associations of pain and pleasure, especially of pain, might be created, and might produce desires and aversions capable of lasting undiminished to the end of life. But there must always be something artificial and casual in associations thus produced.
"Juniper," replies the other, "I think the `aversions, as you call them, belong to you and not to me, if I may judge by your aversion for poor Jacob; and as for `retrospects, I think the less I say about them the better."
The editors are also fully conscious that, like all other similar collections, this one too will give rise to the familiar criticism and questionings as to why such a passage was omitted and such another inserted; why this writer was chosen and that other passed by. In literature we all have our favorites, and even the most catholic of us has also his dislikes if not his pet aversions.
"What under the sun is the man afraid of?" Newman asked himself. "Does he think I am going to offer to swap jack-knives with him?" It was useless to shut his eyes to the fact that the marquis was profoundly disagreeable to him. He had never been a man of strong personal aversions; his nerves had not been at the mercy of the mystical qualities of his neighbors.
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