Ideala

Sarah Grand (1854 - 1943)

She came among us without flourish of trumpets. She just slipped into her place, almost unnoticed, but once she was settled there it seemed as if we had got something we had wanted all our lives, and we should have missed her as you would miss the thrushes in the spring, or any other sweet familiar thing. But what the secret of her charm was I cannot say. She was full of inconsistencies. She disliked ostentation, and never wore those ornamental fidgets ladies delight in, but she would take a piece of priceless lace to cover her head when she went to water her flowers. And she said rings were a mistake; if your hands were ugly they drew attention to them, if pretty they hid their beauty; yet she wore half-a-dozen worthless ones habitually for the love of those who gave them, to her. It was said that she was striking in appearance, but cold and indifferent in manner. Some, on whom she had never turned her eyes, called her repellent. But it was noticed that men who took her down to dinner, or had any other opportunity of talking to her, were never very positive in, what they said of her afterwards. She made every one, men and women alike, feel, and she did it unconsciously. Without effort, without eccentricity, without anything you could name or define, she impressed you, and she held you —or at least she held me, always—expectant. Nothing about her ever seemed to be of the present. When she talked she made you wonder what her past had been, and when she was silent you began to speculate about her future. But she did not talk much as a rule, and when she did speak it was always some subject of interest, some fact that she wanted to ascertain accurately, or some beautiful idea, that occupied her; she had absolutely no small talk for any but her most intimate friends, whom she was wont at times to amuse with an endless stock of anecdotes and quaint observations; and this made people of limited capacity hard on her. Some of these called her a cold, ambitious, unsympathetic woman; and perhaps, from their point of view, she was so. She certainly aspired to something far above them, and had nothing but scorn for the dead level of dull mediocrity from which they would not try to rise".

This is a new woman novel by the author of the Heavenly Twins, describing the restrictions forced upon 19th century women in unhappy marriages. (Summary by Stav Nisser, with the opening paragraph of the book)

Genre(s): General Fiction

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 00 Dedication Aimee van den Berg
00:05:09
Play 01 Chapter 1 Kyle Stedman
00:21:14
Play 02 Chapter 2 Colleen Benedicto
00:15:31
Play 03 Chapter 3 WildShimmeringPath
00:04:29
Play 04 Chapter 4 WildShimmeringPath
00:16:19
Play 05 Chapter 5 WildShimmeringPath
00:04:03
Play 06 Chapter 6 Taylor W
00:05:20
Play 07 Chapter 7 Taylor W
00:06:30
Play 08 Chapter 8 Taylor W
00:04:47
Play 09 Chapter 9 Taylor W
00:04:40
Play 10 Chapter 10 Colleen Benedicto
00:03:04
Play 11 Chapter 11 VoiceOverMom
01:11:54
Play 12 Chapter 12 VoiceOverMom
00:14:28
Play 13 Chapter 13 Alysson Light
00:06:10
Play 14 Chapter 14 Alysson Light
00:09:39
Play 15 Chapter 15 Alysson Light
00:14:59
Play 16 Chapter 16 Alysson Light
00:09:17
Play 17 Chapter 17 Alysson Light
00:16:47
Play 18 Chapter 18 Alysson Light
00:20:31
Play 19 Chapter 19 Alysson Light
00:11:26
Play 20 Chapter 20 Alysson Light
00:22:07
Play 21 Chapter 21 Alysson Light
00:16:31
Play 22 Chapter 22 Aimee van den Berg
00:06:40
Play 23 Chapter 23 Aimee van den Berg
00:05:01
Play 24 Chapter 24 Aimee van den Berg
00:18:14
Play 25 Chapter 25 Aimee van den Berg
00:19:54
Play 26 Chapter 26 WildShimmeringPath
00:15:45
Play 27 Chapter 27 WildShimmeringPath
00:20:56
Play 28 Chapter 28 WildShimmeringPath
00:19:42
Play 29 Chapter 29 Adrienne Prevost
00:14:46
Play 30 Chapter 30 Adrienne Prevost
00:05:11