The Narrator is lurking at the back of a bookshop. Now read on.
"[Charles] heard the shop-door open, and, on looking round, saw a familiar face. It was that of a young clergyman, with a very pretty girl on his arm, whom her dress pronounced to be a bride. Love was in their eyes, joy in their voice, and affluence in their gait and bearing. Charles had a faintish feeling come over him: somewhat such as might beset a man on hearing a call for pork-chops when he was sea-sick. ... The shopman returned. 'Oh, what a sweet face!" she said, looking at the frontispiece of a little book she got hold of; 'do look, Henry dear; whom does it put you in mind of?' 'Why, it's meant for St. John the Baptist' said Henry. 'It's so like little Angelina Primrose,' said she, 'the hair is just hers. I wonder it doesn't strike you.' 'It does--it does, dearest, said he smiling at her ..."
I find this quite exquisite ... the way that Romantic Love and its literary conventions are subverted by the evocation of vomiting on ship-board.
And ... what do you think, dearest ... are there hints of the sexual ambiguities in early Victorian art ...?
I think it is more the cult of childhood, which was a reaction to "seen and not heard" Regency childhood, probably.
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