\u201cRobert Audley was supposed to be a barrister\u2026\u201d (Bradon 35)<\/p>\n
This opening phrase can mean either that Audley is not truthfully employed or that he was born to occupy an office in Fig-Tree Court, Temple. The characterization that follows reveals both interpretations as equally applicable. Robert Audley is a man defined by what he is not and he has no interest in veering from the course predetermined by the circumstances of his birth. He is perfectly content to surrender himself to the dull pleasures of the routine. Numbers and passive language reappear throughout his introduction, reminders of Audley\u2019s repetitious life and his past as an accountant: Robert is the \u201conly child\u201d of a father who left him \u201c\u00a3400,\u201d he\u2019s aged \u201cabout seven-and-twenty,\u201d a barrister for the \u201cfive years\u201d his name has been painted upon \u201cone door,\u201d and he attends his \u201callotted number of dinners\u201d (35). Although Robert\u2019s complaints of \u201coverwork\u201d are laughed off, they are not entirely inaccurate (35). Audley\u2019s greatest fault is not that he cares too little, but rather that he cares too much. Audley\u2019s absolute rejection of violence is his only motivation, he spends all his hours contemplating how best to avoid conflict. Audley became a barrister only to avoid conflict with friends, this fear of opposition would explain why he \u201cnever\u2026 even wished to have a brief\u201d as a confrontational litigator (35). Audley\u2019s introduction is made even stranger by his friendship with George Talboys \u2013 a man in every way his opposite. Talboys sought out the life of violence as a dragoon that Audley so carefully avoided, not out of desperation but simple excitement. The cigar smoking Talboys plays cards while Audley smokes his \u201cGerman pipe\u201d and reads the same \u201cFrench novels\u201d unknown to Talboys earlier (35). Talboys is anxious to offboard the Argus<\/em> while Audley is comfortable as a passenger on the leisurely cruise of his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cRobert Audley was supposed to be a barrister\u2026\u201d (Bradon 35) This opening phrase can mean either that Audley is not truthfully employed or that he was born to occupy an office in Fig-Tree Court, Temple. The characterization that follows reveals both interpretations as equally applicable. Robert Audley is a man defined by what he is … Continue reading Audley the Scrivener<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4683,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}