“Man has more interests,” Joan argued, “a thousand other allurements to distract him; we must cultivate his finer instincts.” And suddenly—as years before in a Paris music hall—there leapt to life within Joan’s brain a little impish creature that took possession of her. She hoped the miracle would not happen. The little impish creature within her brain was marching up and down beating a drum. She wished he would stop a minute. Someone was trying to talk to her, telling her she ought to be tremendously shocked and grieved. He—or she, or whatever it was that was trying to talk to her, appeared concerned about Reason and Pity and Universal Brotherhood and Civilization’s clock—things like that. But the little impish drummer was making such a din, she couldn’t properly hear. Later on, perhaps, he would get tired; and then she would be able to listen to this humane and sensible person, whoever it might be.!

杰罗米•K•杰罗米 Jerome Klapka Jerome “What have you been doing?” he asked her.

They were passing the long sweep of Chester Terrace. “I like this neighbourhood with its early Victorian atmosphere,” she said. “It always makes me feel quiet and good. I don’t know why.” “Nature appears to have only one idea in her head,” she continued after a pause, “so far as we men and women are concerned. She’s been kinder to the lower animals.” “Couldn’t you have saved a bit, Daddy?” she asked, “of all that wealth of youth—just enough to live on?”