Constantius. Say then I take it the wrong way; that is why it has never made my fortune. But I do try to understand; it is my—my—(He pauses.)
Theodora. I know what you want to say. Your strong side.
Pulcheria. And what is his weak side?
Theodora. He writes novels.
Constantius. I have written one. You can’t call that a side. It’s a little facet, at the most.
Pulcheria. You talk as if you were a diamond. I should like to read it—not aloud!
Constantius. You can’t read it softly enough. But you, Theodora, you didn’t find our book too “protracted”?
Theodora. I should have liked it to continue indefinitely, to keep coming out always, to be one of the regular things of life.
Pulcheria. Oh, come here, little dog! To think that Daniel Deronda might be perpetual when you, little short-nosed darling, can’t last at the most more than nine or ten years!
Theodora. A book like Daniel Deronda becomes part of one’s life; one lives in it, or alongside of it. I don’t hesitate to say that I have been living in this one for the last eight months. It is such a complete world George Eliot builds up; it is so vast, so much-embracing! It has such a firm earth and such an ethereal sky. You can turn into it and lose yourself in it.