The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 2
When Sir Austin Feverel set out to raise his son according to a system of sexual restraint he called the Sir Austin System, he created the very conditions for catastrophe. Volume 2 finds Richard Feverel at the threshold of adulthood, his body and desires awakening during the fateful 'Blossoming Season' even as his father's rigid educational philosophy tightens its grip. What begins as a coming-of-age story curdles into something far darker: a young man trapped between the puritanical ideals of his father and theRaw, uncontrollable forces of his own nature. Meredith strips away Victorian propriety to expose the psychological violence of repression, the way good intentions curdle into tyranny, and how the attempt to engineer a man's soul ultimately destroys him. The relationship between Richard and his cousin Clare hints at innocent affection twisted by the poisonous atmosphere of forced virtue. This is not a nostalgic education novel but a ruthless autopsy of idealistic parenting and the Eden it corrupts. Few Victorian novels dare to be this anatomically honest about desire, and none do it with more tragic irony.
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“I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.””
— George Meredith
“Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious.””
— George Meredith
“Why mayn't they do what men do?' the Hero cried impetuously. 'I hate that contemptible narrow-mindedness. It's that that makes the ruin and horrors I see. Why mayn't they do what men do? I like the women who are brave enough not to be hypocrites. By Heaven! if these women are bad, I like them better than a set of hypocritical creatures who are all show, and deceive you in the end.””
— George Meredith
“I remember that you said Richard had done wrong. Yes; well, that may be. But his father eclipsed his wrong in a greater wrong”
— George Meredith
“On which should the accusation fall”
— George Meredith
“I suppose my father's right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do with it.””
— George Meredith
“Of course, I will go if you wish, but I would so much rather stay;" and she lengthened her plea in her attitude and look to melt the discontent she saw gathering.””
— George Meredith
“The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not solicit the favourable judgement of the world. Nature and he attempted no other concealment than the ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would proclaim him moral, as well as wise, and the pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin Austin.””
— George Meredith
“our young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of them. Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have contested the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and mother of Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups with disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at work, hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed for an expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat. His sleeves were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its lining on her lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but eating was the business of the hour, as I would have you to know it always will be where Cupid is in earnest.””
— George Meredith
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Meredith, George. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 2. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-ordeal-of-richard-feverel-volume-2-19a4968c-b74a-47b1-8cb6-fa3ee98087d1.Meredith, G. (n.d.). The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 2. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-ordeal-of-richard-feverel-volume-2-19a4968c-b74a-47b1-8cb6-fa3ee98087d1Meredith, George. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 2. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-ordeal-of-richard-feverel-volume-2-19a4968c-b74a-47b1-8cb6-fa3ee98087d1.
