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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thanks for listening to The Sleepy Bookshelf tonight. You make this show possible. If you, like so many, would like to support us, then check out our premium feed, where you'll get ad-free access to the entire catalogue, plus exclusive episodes in between our longer books. There's a link to learn more in the show notes.
Hello, it's Elizabeth and I'm excited to share with you the newest show from Slumber Studios.
Chapter 2: What new show does Elizabeth introduce at the beginning?
It's called Sleepy History and it's exactly what it sounds like. Intriguing stories, people, mysteries and events from history delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere. Explore the legend of El Dorado. See what life was like for the Roman gladiators. Uncover the myths and mysteries of Stonehenge.
You'll find interesting but relaxing episodes like these on Sleepy History and the same great production quality you've come to know and love from the Sleepy Bookshelf. So check it out. And perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player.
Good evening, and welcome to the Sleepy Bookshelf, where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book. I'm your host, Elizabeth, and I'm so pleased to be here with you. This evening we'll be continuing A Room with a View, but before that, Let's take a moment to unwind and relax. Enjoy a big stretch and feel the tension release from your muscles.
The day is over and all that matters is that you get the rest you deserve for tomorrow. So let's take some nice deep breaths. imagining all your worries and concerns being absorbed into a little cloud and as you exhale watch that cloud blow away one more together inhale and exhale wonderful You can repeat this as many times as you need to feel fully relaxed.
Lucy found herself increasingly drawn to George Emerson during tennis, while Cecil distracted everyone by reading aloud from a mediocre novel that happened to be the book that Miss Lavish had been working on in Florence and contained a thinly disguised version of the kiss Lucy and George had shared.
Horrified, Lucy was relieved when T interrupted them, but as she and George walked through the shrubbery, he impulsively kissed her again. Lucy retreated to her room and summoned Miss Bartlett, learning that she had been the one to tell Miss Lavish about the incident. Furious, but resolved, Lucy confronted George and demanded he'd leave her alone.
However, George passionately declared his love for her and argued that Cecil was incapable of truly understanding or valuing her individuality. Although Lucy tried to dismiss his words and ordered him to leave, his honesty and affection forced her to see Cecil in a new light.
Once she returned to the others, the contrast between George's sincerity and Cecil's self-important manner became impossible to ignore, and she broke off the engagement that very evening. Tonight, we return in the aftermath of that rejection. So just lie back and relax, as I return to the next pages of A Room with a View. Chapter Seventeen lying to Cecil. He was bewildered.
He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but stood with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what had led her to such a conclusion. She had chosen the moment before bed, when in accordance with their bourgeois habit, she had always dispensed drinks to the men.
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Chapter 3: How does Lucy feel about her relationship with George Emerson?
You are not that kind, Lucy. Oh yes, you do think it. It's your old idea. The idea that has kept Europe back. I mean the idea that women are always thinking of men. If a girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says, oh, she had someone else in her mind. She hopes to get someone else. It's disgusting. Brutal. As if a girl can't break it off for the sake of freedom. He answered reverently.
I may have said that in the past. I shall never say it again. You have taught me better. She began to redden and pretended to examine the windows again. Of course, there is no question of someone else in this. No jilting or any such nauseous stupidity. I beg your pardon most humbly if my words suggested that there was. I only meant that there was a force in you that I hadn't known of up till now.
All right, Cecil, that will do. Don't apologize to me. It was my mistake. It is a question between ideals. Yours and mine. Pure, abstract ideals. And yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old, vicious notions and all the time you were splendid and new. His voice broke. I must actually thank you for what you have done. For showing me what I really am.
Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake hands? Of course I will, said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the curtains. Good night, Cecil. Goodbye. That's all right. I'm sorry about it. Thank you very much for your gentleness. Let me light your candle, shall I? They went into the hall. Thank you, and good night again. God bless you, Lucy. Goodbye, Cecil.
She watched him steal upstairs, while the shadows from three banisters passed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused, strong in his renunciation and gave her a look of memorable beauty. For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it. She could never marry.
In the tumult of her soul that stood firm, Cecil believed in her. She must someday believe in herself. She must be one of the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for liberty and not for men. She must forget that George loved her, that George had been thinking through her and gained her this honourable release. That George had gone away into… what was it? Darkness?
She put out the lamp. It did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave up trying to understand herself and joined the vast armies of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by catchwords. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk, but they have yielded to the only enemy that matters, the enemy within.
They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censored. Their pleasantry and their piety shows cracks. Their wit becomes cynicism. Their unselfishness hypocrisy. They feel and produce discomfort wherever they go.
They have sinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention but by the ordinary course of nature. Those allied deities will be avenged. Lucy entered this army when she pretended to George that she did not love him, and pretended to Cecil that she loved no one. The night received her as it had received Miss Bartlett 30 years before.
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Chapter 4: What realization does Lucy come to about her feelings for George?
And the letter went on to say, I do not expect we shall go any further than Athens, But if you knew of a really comfortable pension at Constantinople, we should be so grateful. Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it, and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty.
though she was hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly. Oh, that Cerise frock yesterday at church. She must see some beauty in life, or she could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are. That they puzzle themselves as well as their friends.
That their psychology is a modern development and has not yet been understood. This theory, he had known it, had possibly just been illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events yesterday, he was only riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies to visit Athens.
The carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive and stopped abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The door opened obediently and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized as Cecil and Freddie.
They were an odd couple to go driving, but he saw a trunk beside the coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be going away, while Freddie, a cap, was seeing him to the station. They walked rapidly, taking the shortcuts, and reached the summit while the carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road. They shook hands with the clergyman but did not speak.
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Chapter 5: What leads Lucy to confront Cecil about their engagement?
So you're off for a minute, Mr. Weiss? He asked. Cecil said, Yes. While Freddy edged away. I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends of Miss Honeychurch. He quoted from it. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world-
Cecil listened civilly and said he was sure Lucy would be amused and interested. "'Isn't romance capricious? I never notice it in you young people. You do nothing but play lawn tennis and say that romance is dead while the Miss Allens are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against the terrible thing.' A really comfortable pension at Constantinople.
So they call it out of decency, but in their hearts, they want a pension with magic windows, opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland forlorn. No ordinary view will content the Miss Allens. They want the pension keats. I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe, said Freddy, but have you any matches?
I have, said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice that he spoke to the boy more kindly. You have never met these Miss Allens, have you, Mr. Weiss? Never. Never. Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't been to Greece myself and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot, do you not think so?
Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish, I'm not sure which. And in either case, absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy, I'm not being clever. Upon my word, I'm not. I took the idea from another fellow. And give me those matches when you've done with them. He lit a cigarette and went on talking to the two young men.
I was saying, if our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for me. There, the contrast is just as much as I can realise, but not of the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price. And here comes the Victorier. You were quite right, said Cecil. Gruce is not for our little lot. And he got in.
Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman whom he trusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before they had got a dozen yards, he jumped out and came running back for Vice's matchbox, which had not been returned. As he took it, he said, I'm so glad you only talked about books. Cecil's hard hit. Lucy won't marry him.
If you'd gone on about her as you did about them, he might have broken down. But when? Late last night. I must go. Perhaps they won't want me down here. No, no, no. Go on. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank goodness, exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle of his own bicycle approvingly. It was the one foolish thing she ever did. What a glorious riddance!
And after a little thought, he negotiated the slope into windy corner, light of heart. The house again was as it ought to be, cut off forever from Cecil's pretentious world. He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden. In the drawing room, Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart sonata. He hesitated a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful company.
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