OK

VIII OMELETTE

IX A GREAT CHANGE

X A CALL

XI ANOTHER CALL

XII BREAKFAST

XIII THE WORLD

XIV SONG, SCENE AND DANCE

XV THE GIFT

XVI THE HALL AND ITS RESULT

XVII DESCENDANTS OF MACHIAVELLI

XVIII CHICANE

XIX THE TOSSING

XX THE FLITTING

XXI SHIP AND OCEAN

XXII CONFESSIONAL

XXIII NOCTURNAL

XXIV SEEING A LADY HOME

XXV GIRLISH CONFIDENCES

XXVI THE CONCERT

XXVII UNKNOTTING AND KNOTTING

CHAPTER I

BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL

In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can
break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of
our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be.
The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls,
as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding
us, by certain symptoms, that though we never cry there is concealed
somewhere within our bodies a fount of happy tears.

The town park is an idyll in the otherwise prosaic municipal history of
the Borough of Bursley, which previously had never got nearer to romance
than a Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible
rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperfectly-protected shafts of
disused coal-pits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates; it is
surrounded by elegant railings; fountains and cascades babble in it;
wild-fowl from far countries roost in it, on trees with long names; tea
is served in it; brass bands make music on its terraces, and on its
highest terrace town councillors play bowls on billiard-table greens
while casting proud glances on the houses of thirty thousand people
spread out under the sweet influence of the gold angel that tops the
Town Hall spire. The other four towns are apt to ridicule that gold
angel, which for exactly fifty years has guarded the borough and only
been regilded twice. But ask the plumber who last had the fearsome job
of regilding it whether it is a gold angel to be despised, and--you will
see!

The other four towns are also apt to point to their own parks when
Bursley mentions its park (especially Turnhill, smallest and most
conceited of the Five); but let them show a park whose natural situation
equals that of Bursley's park. You may tell me that the terra-cotta
constructions within it carry ugliness beyond a joke; you may tell me
that in spite of the park's vaunted situation nothing can be seen fro