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| | Chapter Eight: Century's End: "The Coming Universal Wish Not to Live |
 | | Ward's sympathies lay with both protagonists--the conservative, landed, earnest Helbeck, whose world has eroded like his estate; and the lively, fresh Laura, who "might have made her Catholic respect her" (316). |
 | | Ward seems to be saying that the best of the old is gone, that women without real education are doomed, that the new religions need intellectuals to apprehend them, and that energy and life now reside in the new cities. |
 | | Ward knew that her novel was tragic, and she treasured the notes of friends like George Wyndham who tried to decipher why its "crash is inevitable" (Ward, 1918; II, 185) But for her new friend, Sir Leslie Stephen, Ward had a special copy bound, omitting the last chapter. |
| www.victorianweb.org /books/suicide/08.html (7506 words) |
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