The Egoist

the world of his dread and his unconscious worship wagged over Sir Willoughby Patterne and his change of brides, until the preparations for the festivities of the marriage flushed him in his county's eyes to something of the splendid glow he had worn on the great day of his majority.

Ego-plot resolves not by Willoughby's reform but by bride-swap that restores his glow — comedy closes the system without curing the Egoist — so plot scores 94.

a young lady whom Vernon Whitford could liken to the Mountain Echo, and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson pronounced to be "a dainty rogue in porcelain".

Dual naming — Vernon's Echo vs Mountstuart's porcelain rogue — casts Clara as contested type before Willoughby owns her — so cast scores 95.

Crossjay's accident was only another proof, as Vernon told Miss Dale, that the boy was but half monkey. "Something fresh?" she exclaimed on seeing him brought into the Hall, where she had just arrived. "Simply a continuation," said Vernon.

Accident as 'continuation' stalls freedom-plot inside Hall comedy — serial dilations of escape — so pace scores 88.

Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing.

Comedy defined as dustless drawing-room game — manifesto sentence for the whole book's diction — so prose scores 96.

There was an ominously anxious watch of eyes visible and invisible over the infancy of Willoughby, fifth in descent from Simon Patterne, of Patterne Hall, premier of this family, a lawyer, a man of solid acquirements and stout ambition, who well understood the foundation-work of a House.

House as foundation-work watched by eyes — county ego-world before any lover enters — so world scores 90.

There was an ominously anxious watch of eyes visible and invisible over the infancy of Willoughby, fifth in descent from Simon Patterne, of Patterne Hall.

Infancy under ominous watch — Egoist hooked as hereditary specimen, not as adult suitor — so hook scores 93.

Egoist is our fountain-head, primeval man: the primitive is born again, the elemental reconstituted. Born again, into new conditions, the primitive may be highly polished of men, and forfeit nothing save the roughness of his original nature.

Egoist theorized as polished primeval — comedy as anthropology — so innov scores 97.

That was upon the season when two lovers met between the Swiss and Tyrol Alps over the Lake of Constance. Sitting beside them the Comic Muse is grave and sisterly. But taking a glance at the others of her late company of actors, she compresses her lips.

Alps lovers under grave Muse while other actors get compressed lips — curtain as Comic Spirit judgment — so ending scores 94.