The Portent · Chapter
XXVII: Freedom explained
Honest Wood and Mrs.
What happens
Honest Wood and Mrs. Blakesley join the household. The narrator and Lady Alice live in a cottage by a Scottish lake, where he tutors her again. They become absorbed in each other, and the supernatural events of their past fade. They marry, reclaim Alice's fortune, and purchase the narrator's ancestral home, living in peace.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Sacrifice
Love is portrayed as the gateway to a deeper unseen world, and the couple sacrifices their past supernatural experiences for a life of love and service.
Isolation and Connection
The couple's absorption in each other isolates them from the supernatural, but their love connects them to humanity.
Characters to notice
- Honest Wood
Joins the narrator's service and remains loyal.
- Mrs. Blakesley
Dismissed from the countess's service, she joins the household.
- Lady Alice
Becomes the narrator's pupil again; her character flourishes with love.
- Dr. Ruthwell
A frequent guest who hints at the sabre-cut as the key to the mysteries.
- Lord Hilton
Acknowledges the justice of the claim on Lady Alice's fortune.
Key passages
“When she lost me, the Present vanished, or went by her like an ocean that has no milestones; she caring only for the Past, living only in the Past, and that reflection of it in the dim glass of her hope, which prefigured the Future.”
When she lost me, the present became meaningless, and she lived only in the past, with her hope reflecting a future that mirrored it.
Describes Lady Alice's state of mind during separation.
“We felt that love was the gate to an unseen world infinitely beyond that region of the psychological in which we had hitherto moved; for this love was teaching us to love all men, and live for all men.”
We believed that love opened a door to a spiritual realm far beyond the psychological mysteries we had explored, and it taught us to love and serve everyone.
The narrator reflects on the transformative power of love.