After a few weeks of
desoeuvrement she obeyed the impulse to occupy herself with a
kind of reading alien to Reardon's sympathies. The solid
periodicals attracted her, and especially those articles which
dealt with themes of social science. Anything that savoured of
newness and boldness in philosophic thought had a charm for her
palate. She read a good deal of that kind of literature which may
be defined as specialism popularised; writing which addresses
itself to educated, but not strictly studious, persons, and which
forms the reservoir of conversation for society above the sphere
of turf and west-endism. Thus, for instance, though she could not
undertake the volumes of Herbert Spencer, she was intelligently
acquainted with the tenor of their contents; and though she had
never opened one of Darwin's books, her knowledge of his main
theories and illustrations was respectable. She was becoming a
typical woman of the new time, the woman who has developed
concurrently with journalistic enterprise.
Not many days after that conversation with Edith Carter, she had
occasion to visit Mudie's, for the new number of some periodical
which contained an appetising title.
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