Celibates

Three long stories about people who do not marry: Mildred Lawson, a rich girl who tries art and philanthropy and slips out of every engagement; John Norton, a young Catholic who wants the cloister more than any woman; and Agnes Lahens, a convent girl brought home to a worldly household who goes back to the nuns. Moore went to Paris to paint, failed, and came back with Zola's method; these 1895 studies were early enough in English fiction that the frankness about a woman's own desire had nowhere to be published quietly.