Frontispiece to "The Egoist"

John C. Wallis

1899

This probably illustrates the episode in Chapter VII in which a conflicted Clara Middleton, having expressed a "desire for the air" (59), is conducted into the fine garden at Patterne by the "egoist" himself, Sir Willoughby Patterne. His proprietorial manner, both towards her and the house, is disagreeable to her; she looks downcast. Nor are the prettily trained roses and rosebushes as pleasing to her as he might suppose. Her own preference is for flowers that grow freely in the wild, uncultivated, untended, as the bounty of nature. These are two people whose tastes and indeed characters are utterly different. — Jacqueline Banerjee

Image scanned by the author.

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