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⇒ Cover ⇒ Preface ⇒ Introduction ⇒ The visit ⇒ Weymouth map c.1930 ⇒ Portland map c.1930 ⇒ Works quoted ⇒ Postface |
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A visit to Weymouth with John Cowper Powys [ ⇒ continue... ] |
If the universe is an illusion then our own physical body is an illusion also. |
THE JUBILEE CLOCK |
"I know Jerry Cobbold very well," said the tall man presently, as they passed the Jubilee Clock. This serviceable monument, so familiar and so full of memories for Magnus Muir, received a most cursory glance from Mrs. Cobbold's companion. Pivot for sightseers, Rendezvous for lovers, Resting-place for beggars, imperishable Association, like that of the lectern in their childhood's churches, to all dwellers in Weymouth who remember Victoria, the clock was just a clock for the girl from Guernsey. Even the ornamental adornments of this grandiose erection, adornments so entirely expressive of the era when it was put up, that like the blessing of a well-constituted elderly relative they soothe with pompous benevolence the fretted modern mind, did not, though clearly visible, seduce this girl to a second look.(...) The calm faces of the Janus-like Jubilee Clock rose out of the unending procession as if it had been a light-house amid confluent tides, as if it had been the Shambles Light-ship itself, where the tides of the two bays meet. It was nearly opposite the Jubilee Clock, which itself was opposite the short crowded street to the railway station, that the real Weymouth sands began. On the Brunswick Terrace side of the Clock there was very little sand, under most conditions of the tides none at all, for the pebbles sloped steeply down to the water, and the water itself was deep. |
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