ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

It was not till many days had passed that the Princess began to accept
the idea of having done, a little, something she was not always doing,
or indeed that of having listened to any inward voice that spoke in a
new tone. Yet these instinctive postponements of reflection were the
fruit, positively, of recognitions and perceptions already active; of the
sense, above all, that she had made, at a particular hour, made by the
mere touch of her hand, a difference in the situation so long present to
her as practically unattackable. (299)
Maggie’s mind has already begun to open to the possibilities associated with a
broader, deeper understanding of “the garden of life” (299). Maggie, like Amerigo
and Charlotte, has done something in the closing chapters of Part Second that is
unusual, upsetting the stable world of habit that characterized, for her, the world of
Part First. Confirming and clarifying Fanny’s account of the evening, Maggie recalls
that she had gone home to wait for her husband’s return from Matcham, rather than to
her father’s house. But she has also heard an inward voice, speaking where the novel
offers only silence. Unlike Hyacinth’s words, though, Maggie’s inward voice does
not bind her to a cause, a future action, or to a human being. And while we can
discern, if not the exact words of Hyacinth’s vow, at least the general character of the
promise to fulfill an obligation that will drive the plot of that novel inevitably towards
it conclusion, Maggie’s inward voice is more indistinct. We might guess more of
Maggie’s inward voice than she does at the moment—that it is tied to her husband’s
infidelity—whereas Hyacinth knows more of his vow than we do. But this knowledge
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