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He Yang
Language Learning Motivation and L2
Pragmatic Competence

He Yang
College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University, Xiamen,
Fujian, China
ISBN 978-981-19-5279-1 e-ISBN 978-981-19-5280-7
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5280-7
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Acknowledgements
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of completing my book is this
chance to properly thank those whose contributions shaped the final
result. This book started life as a Ph.D. thesis completed at the
University of Aberdeen in 2018, though it has grown and changed quite
a bit in several years of gestation. The thesis was supervised by
Professor Robert McColl Millar, who has been a constant source of
advice and encouragement and whose guidance has tremendously
influenced my development as both a scholar and a human being. I
could not have asked for a better supervisor.
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Wei Ren
of Beihang University for the many conservations and discussions that
helped me clarify my thoughts on various aspects of this book. His
critical comments and questions always enriched my own research. I
am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of this book for their
careful reading of my manuscript and their many insightful comments
and suggestions.
I also wish to thank the students who participated in the project,
and my colleagues at Xiamen University, who kindly allowed me to
involve their students in the data collection process. Without their
outstanding cooperation, my research for this book would not have
been completed. My appreciation is also extended to Dr. Peixin Zhang,
Dr. Agni Connor and Dr. Lorna Aucott for their assistance with the
statistical issues in my research.
My research for this book was facilitated by several funding sources.
I am greatly indebted to the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for
financially supporting my doctoral study, and also to the University of
Aberdeen and Xiamen University for sponsoring and financing my
participant recruitment and conference trips. Attending conferences
enabled me to present the findings of my research and to receive
constructive feedback from scholars and colleagues. Their support is
greatly appreciated.
Some of the material contained in this book has previously been
published elsewhere. I would like to thank John Benjamins Publishing
Company for permission to reproduce my article: Yang, H., & Ren, W.
(2019). Pragmatic awareness and second language learning motivation:

A mixed-methods investigation. Pragmatics & Cognition, 26(2–3), 447–
473. DOI: 10.
1075/
pc.
19022.
yan. Thanks are also due to Frontiers for:
Yang, H. (2022). Second language learners’ competence of and beliefs
about pragmatic comprehension: Insights from the Chinese EFL
context. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 801315. DOI: 10.
3389/
fpsyg.
2021.
801315. My thanks go also to MDPI for: Yang, H., & Wu, X. (2022).
Language learning motivation and its role in learner complaint
production. Sustainability, 14, 10770. DOI: 10.
3390/
su141710770.
Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their
unconditional love: to my parents (without your help and your
dedication to Junyue, I could have never found the opportunity to
engage in the project, thank you so much); to my husband, Xiaoyu, who
took a long leave of absence from his work to take care of me and our
son in the UK; to my son, Junyue, who constantly reminded me not to
give up (thank you, my little boy, for your encouragement and for
moving to the UK to be with me, even when you did not know a single
English word). Without them, I could not have survived the many ups
and downs of my doctoral study overseas and concentrated on my
research.

AJT
AMTB
ANOVA
ATLC
ATLE
CCSARP
CI
D
DCT
EFL
ESL
FTAs
HM
ID
ILE
ILP
ILS
IN
KMO
L1
L2
L2MSS
LM
M
MCLQ
MMD
OLS
Abbreviations
Appropriateness Judgement Task
Attitude/Motivation Test Battery
Analysis of Variance
Attitudes Towards the L2 Community
Attitudes Towards Learning English
Cross-Cultural Speech Acts Realization Patterns
Cultural Interest
Social Distance
Discourse Completion Task
English as a Foreign Language
English as a Second Language
Face Threatening Acts
High Motivation
Individual Difference
Intended Learning Efforts
Interlanguage Pragmatics
Ideal L2 Self
Instrumentality
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
First Language
Second Language
L2 Motivational Self System
Low Motivation
Mean
Multiple-Choice Listening Questionnaire
Mixed Methods Design
Ought-to L2 Self

P
R
RQ
SD
SLA
Social Power
Ranking of Imposition
Research Question
Standard Deviation
Second Language Acquisition

Contents
1 Introduction
1.
1 Current Situation of L2 Pragmatics
1.
2 The Purpose of the Study
1.
3 Research Questions
1.
4 Overview of the Chapters
References
2 Literature Review
2.
1 Pragmatics
2.
2 Second Language Pragmatics and L2 Pragmatic Competence
2.
2.
1 Definition and Research Scope of L2 Pragmatics
2.
2.
2 Communicative Competence and L2 Pragmatic
Competence
2.
3 Pragmatic Theories Adopted by L2 Pragmatics Research
2.
3.
1 Speech Acts Theories
2.
3.
2 Implicature
2.
3.
3 Politeness Theory
2.
4 Motivation to Learn a Foreign Language
2.
4.
1 Gardner’s Socio-Educational Model
2.
4.
2 L2 Motivational Self System
2.
4.
3 Research on the L2 Motivational Self System
2.
5 Studies Examining the Effects of L2 Motivation on L2
2.
5.
1 Studies Investigating the Effects of L2 Motivation on L2
Pragmatic Awareness
2.
5.
2 Studies Examining the Relationship Between
Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Production

2.
5.
3 Summary and Discussions
2.
6 Chapter Summary
References
3 Methodology
3.
1 Mixed Methods Design
3.
2 Participants
3.
3 Instruments
3.
3.
1 The Web-Based Survey
3.
3.
2 Semi-Structured Interviews
3.
4 Procedures
3.
5 Data Analysis
3.
5.
1 Quantitative Data Analysis
3.
5.
2 Semi-Structured Interviews
3.
6 Chapter Summary
Appendices
References
4 EFL Learners’ Motivation for Studying English
4.
1 Questionnaire Results
4.
1.
1 Distribution of the Motivational Variables
4.
1.
2 The Perceived Role of the Seven Motivational Variables
4.
1.
3 Comparison of L2 Motivation Across Genders
4.
1.
4 Comparison of L2 Motivation Across Majors
4.
1.
5 Summary and Discussion
4.
2 Interview Results
4.
2.
1 Instrumentality
4.
2.
2 Cultural Interest in Studying English

4.
2.
3 Ideal L2 Self
4.
2.
4 Enjoying Language Learning as a Reason for Studying
English
4.
2.
5 Attitude Towards the L2 Community
4.
3 Chapter Summary
References
5 L2 Motivation and Pragmatic Awareness
5.
1 L2 Pragmatic Awareness
5.
1.
1 Appropriateness Judgement Task Results
5.
1.
2 Interview Results
5.
2 Effect of L2 Motivation on L2 Pragmatic Awareness
5.
2.
1 Quantitative Results
5.
2.
2 Qualitative Results
5.
3 Chapter Summary
References
6 L2 Motivation and Pragmatic Comprehension
6.
1 L2 Pragmatic Comprehension
6.
1.
1 Multiple-Choice Listening Questionnaire Results
6.
1.
2 Interview Results
6.
1.
3 Paralinguistic Cues
6.
2 Effect of L2 Motivation on L2 Pragmatic Comprehension
6.
2.
1 Quantitative Results
6.
2.
2 Qualitative Results
6.
2.
3 Lack of Exposure to the L2 Community
6.
3 Chapter Summary
References

7 L2 Motivation and Pragmatic Production
7.
1 Comparison of Groups’ Use of the Complaining Act
7.
1.
1 Frequency of Opting Out
7.
1.
2 Range of Pragmatic Strategy Types
7.
1.
3 Frequency of Pragmatic Strategies
7.
2 Employment of Individual Pragmatic Strategies
7.
2.
1 Complaint Strategies
7.
2.
2 Internal Complaint Modifications
7.
2.
3 External Complaint Modifications
7.
3 Chapter Summary
References
8 Conclusions
8.
1 Summary of Findings
8.
1.
1 Research Question 1
8.
1.
8.
1.
8.
1.
8.
2 Implications
8.
2.
1 Theoretical Implications
8.
2.
2 Methodological Implications
8.
2.
3 Pedagogical Implications
8.
3 Limitations of the Study
8.
4 Suggestions for Further Research
References

List of Figures
Fig.2.
1 Brown and Levinson’s set of FTA-avoiding strategies
Fig.2.
2 Gardner’s conceptualisatio
n of the integrative motive (1985)
Fig.2.
3 Gardner’s socio-educational model of second language
acquisition (Gardner &MacIntyre, 1993)
Fig.3.
1 Mixed methods design and phases
Fig.4.
1 Mean values of seven motivational variables across majors
Fig.5.
1 Appropriateness ratings across scenarios
Fig.7.
1 The motivational levels and gender interaction in relation to the
frequency of complaint strategies
Fig.7.
2 The motivational levels and major interaction on the frequency
of complaint strategies
Fig.7.
3 The effects of motivational levels and gender interaction on the
frequency of internal modifications

List of Tables
Table 2.
1 The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975)
Table 3.
1 Descriptions of the DCT situations
Table 3.
2 The taxonomy of complaint strategies
Table 3.
3 Categories of internal modifications
Table 4.
1 Reliability estimates for the seven motivational variables
Table 4.
2 Cronbach alpha values, questionnaire items and factor
loadings of items for each motivational variable
Table 4.
3 Independent sample T-test for the overall L2 motivation
across genders
Table 4.
4 Independent Sample T test for the seven motivational
variables across genders
Table 4.
5 One-way ANOVA for the overall L2 motivation between
English majors, arts students (excluding English majors), science
students
Table 4.
6 Comparison of the motivational variables across majors

Table 4.
7 Condensed overview of interviewees’ reasons for learning
English
Table 5.
1 Descriptive statistics of participants’ performance in AJT
Table 5.
2 Correlation between overall motivation and pragmatic
awareness
Table 5.
3 Correlations between motivational variables and pragmatic
awareness
Table 5.
4 Stepwise regression model predicting L2 pragmatic
awareness
Table 6.
1 Items in MCLQ from easiest to most difficult
Table 6.2 Paired Sample T test for accuracy scores on two types of
implicature
Table 6.
3 Frequency distribution of factors reported for each item
Table 6.
4 Correlation between overall L2 motivation and pragmatic
comprehension

Table 6.
5 Correlations between motivational variables and pragmatic
comprehension
Table 6.
6 Stepwise regression model predicting L2 pragmatic
comprehension
Table 7.
1 Summary of participants’ general information
Table 7.
2 Comparison of frequency of opt-outs by situation
Table 7.
3 Descriptive statistics on the range of complaint strategy types
for the HM group and the LM group
Table 7.
4 Descriptive statistics on the range of internal modification
types for the HM group and the LM group
Table 7.
5 Descriptive statistics on the range of external modification
types for the HM group and the LM group
Table 7.
6 Frequency and percentage of complaint strategies for the HM
group and the LM group
Table 7.
7 Results of factorial ANOVA for complaint strategies involving
gender
Table 7.
8 Results of factorial ANOVA for complaint strategies involving
major

Table 7.
9 Frequency and percentage of internal modifications for the
HM group and the LM group
Table 7.
10 Results of factorial ANOVA for internal modifications
involving gender
Table 7.
11 Results of factorial ANOVA for internal modifications
involving major
Table 7.
12 Frequency and percentage of external modifiers for the HM
group and the LM group
Table 7.
13 Results of factorial ANOVA for external modifications
involving gender
Table 7.
14 Results of factorial ANOVA for external modifications
involving major
Table 7.
15 Number of “hint” employed according to status and distance
Table 7.
16 Number of “dissatisfaction” employed according to status
and distance
Table 7.
17 Number of “interrogation” employed according to status and
distance

Table 7.
18 Number of “accusation” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
19 Number of “request for repair” employed according to status
and distance
Table 7.
20 Number of “threat” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
21 Number of “downtoner” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
22 Number of “understater” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
23 Number of “subjectiviser” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
24 Number of “cajoler” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
25 Number of “appealer” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
26 Number of “intensifier” employed according to status and
distance

Table 7.
27 Number of “preparator” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
28 Number of “disarmer” employed according to status and
distance
Table 7.
29 Number of “providing evidence” employed according to
status and distance

(1)
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
H. Yang, Language Learning Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Competence
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5280-7_1
1. Introduction
He Yang1
College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University,
Xiamen, Fujian, China
He Yang
Email: yanghe@xmu.edu.cn
Abstract
Language learning motivation is very likely to influence the process and
outcome of second language (L2) learning (Ellis, Understanding second
language acquisition, Oxford University Press, 2015). However, to date,
little research has explored the relationship between L2 motivation and
pragmatic acquisition. The potential role of motivation in the
acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence has been largely under-
researched (Taguchi and Roever, Second language pragmatics, Oxford
University Press, 2017). This book aims to explore how language
learners come to know what to say to whom in an English as a foreign
language (EFL) context and whether and to what extent their language
learning motivation impacts their learning. This chapter concisely
presents the current situation of second language (L2) pragmatics,
explains the rationale of the study, introduces the research questions,
and outlines the structure of the different chapters.
Keywords Language learning motivation – L2 pragmatics – Pragmatic
competence – Pragmatic awareness – Pragmatic comprehension –
Pragmatic production – L2 motivational self system – Mixed methods
design – EFL learners

A speaker of English as a foreign language who has done a presentation
as part of a course assignment goes to see his professor to get some
comments on his performance, and the professor says, “Nice
PowerPoint.” This student might take this comment as a “compliment”.
Another student in the same situation might interpret this comment as
“indirect criticism”. Both interpretations are certainly reasonable, but
most competent English speakers would consider the second to be the
correct interpretation, as the professor’s comment touches on only an
unimportant and irrelevant aspect of the student’s overall performance.
Making the first interpretation would indicate that the speaker has
made communication missteps, which might arise from not
understanding the social conventions or cultural rules and norms of the
target language rather than arising from a lack of grammatical
knowledge.
The present study explores how language learners come to know
what to say to whom in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context
and whether and to what extent their language learning motivation
impacts their learning. More specifically, it examines whether and how
Chinese university EFL learners’ various motivations for studying
English differently influence their second language (L2) pragmatic sub-
competencies, namely, their perception of the appropriateness of
speech acts, their comprehension of conversational implicatures and
their production of the speech act of complaining in English.
1.1 Current Situation of L2 Pragmatics
Language learning motivation is very likely to influence the process and
outcome of second language (L2) learning (Ellis, 2015). For this reason,
the topic has attracted considerable attention in the field of L2
acquisition. However, to date, little research has explored the
relationship between L2 motivation and pragmatic acquisition. The
potential role of motivation in the acquisition of L2 pragmatic
competence has been largely under-researched (Taguchi & Roever,
2017). Indeed, in their seminal book, Kasper and Rose (2002) called for
more research on the influence of motivation and attitudes in L2
pragmatic acquisition, since at the time, only Takahashi (2000) had

directly investigated the effect of motivation on learners’ awareness of
pragmalinguistic forms. However, more than a decade and a half later,
this situation remained nearly unchanged, as noted by Taguchi and
Roever (2017).
Studies exploring the effects of L2 motivation on pragmatic
acquisition are still lacking. Although some authors treat motivation as
a post hoc explanation for pragmatic acquisition (e.g., Cook, 2001;
Niezgoda & Roever, 2001), to date, only a few studies have measured
motivation as an independent variable and examined its effect on
pragmatic acquisition (e.g., Tajeddin & Moghadam, 2012; Takahashi,
2005, 2015). The limited number of empirical investigations into the
effect of learners’ motivation on L2 pragmatics reveals an important
area of research yet to be explored.
Pragmatic competence refers to the ability to use language
accurately and appropriately in social interactions and includes both
receptive and productive pragmatic competences (Kasper & Rose,
2002; Ren, 2015). However, few studies in L2 pragmatics research have
explored the two aspects of the same group of participants (exceptions
being Bardovi-Harlig, 2009; Bardovi-Harlig & Bastos, 2011; Ren, 2015;
Schauer, 2009; Taguchi, 2012).
Moreover, the progress in research on these two sub-competencies
of L2 pragmatics has been unbalanced. In recent decades, pragmatic
competence has been analysed mainly through production skills,
especially the performance of speech acts (e.g., Achiba, 2002; Felix-
Brasdefer, 2004; Ren, 2013; Trosborg, 1995), although an increasing
number of studies have investigated learners’ L2 pragmatic
comprehension, such as the ability to identify pragmatic infelicities
(Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig & Griffin, 2005;
Schauer, 2006, 2009) and comprehend conventional expressions
(Bardovi-Harlig & Bastos, 2011; Roever, 2012), conversational
implicature (Bouton, 1992, 1994; Taguchi, 2005, 2011; Taguchi et al.,
2016), and speech acts (Cook & Liddicoat, 2002; Holtgraves, 2007;
Taguchi & Bell, 2020). Therefore, studies that have incorporated both
constructs in instruments are still scarce.
Studies that focus on only certain aspect(s) of L2 pragmatic
competence are likely to fail to uncover learners’ overall pragmatic
competence. More empirical studies concerning both aspects of

pragmatic competence are needed to achieve a more comprehensive
understanding of the acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence (Ren,
2015; Taguchi, 2010). Studies aiming to explore the impact of L2
motivation on the acquisition of both receptive and productive
pragmatic competences are of considerable interest because “different
aspects of L2 pragmatics may be differentially noticeable to learners
with different motivational profiles” (Kasper & Rose, 2002, p. 287).
That is, it is very likely that the two sub-competencies of L2 pragmatics
are differently influenced by language learning motivation.
Another concern is related to methodological issues. In the field of
L2 pragmatics, previous studies have mostly employed a quantitative
approach (e.g., Barron, 2003; Matsumura, 2001, 2003; Taguchi, 2008,
2011) but have rarely used qualitative approaches (e.g., Ren, 2014;
Taguchi, 2012). The two types of approaches each have their own
advantages. For example, quantitative data can provide researchers
with “a large numerical database”, whereas qualitative data often
provide “the richer contextualized data important for a fuller
understanding” (Mackey & Gass, 2016, p. 278). Employing a mixed
methods design (MMD), combining quantitative and qualitative
approaches, can provide “a greater triangulation of findings and help
identify and interpret ‘rich points’ in research” (Duff, 2010, p. 59, citing
Hornberger, 2006). Therefore, the adoption of MMD has recently been
advocated in L2 pragmatics research (Ren, 2015). This also follows the
general trend in applied linguistics research (Dewaele, 2005; Dörnyei,
2007; Hashemi & Babii, 2013; Jang et al., 2014).
In addition, research on the acquisition of pragmatic competence
has predominantly examined learners as a homogenous group, focusing
on the effect of L2 proficiency or learning contexts (including study
abroad and formal classroom instruction). Few studies have explored
the effect of individual variation, for example, the link between
learners’ language learning motivation and L2 pragmatic competence
(e.g., Yang & Ren, 2019). Moreover, little effort has been made to
investigate the effect of motivation on L2 pragmatic development
through the lens of L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009),
although L2 motivation is by nature dynamic, complex and multifaceted
(Dörnyei, 2005; Ushioda, 2010). Finally, little research has examined

the relationships between learners’ motivation and their L2 pragmatic
competence in a Chinese EFL context.
1.2 The Purpose of the Study
Given the gaps in the scholarly analysis of the subjects discussed in
Section 1.1, the present study attempts to contribute to the current L2
pragmatic literature in a number of ways. First, it aims to explore the
significance of EFL learners’ motivation for their acquisition of L2
pragmatic competence. Second, this aim demands methodological
innovation: the study combines a Web-based survey and post hoc semi-
structured interviews; it bases its discussion on a triangulation of
quantitative and qualitative methods. Third, the study attempts to
explore the effect of L2 motivation on both receptive and productive
pragmatic competences of the same group of EFL learners. Finally, it
contributes to the field of L2 pragmatics research by examining Chinese
university EFL learners’ L2 pragmatics and L2 motivation, expanding
the range of first languages (L1)—in this case Chinese—that have been
investigated by contemporary L2 pragmatics studies.
1.3 Research Questions
The study investigates the effect of EFL learners’ L2 motivation on their
pragmatic competence. A total of 508 Chinese first-year students at a
public university participated in the study. Data were collected from a
Web-based survey and post hoc semi-structured interviews. The Web-
based test consisted of four sections: a motivation questionnaire using
a six-point Likert scale, an appropriateness judgement task (AJT), a
multiple-choice listening questionnaire (MCLQ) and a discourse
completion task (DCT). As stated in Section 1.2, the goal of this study is
to explore whether and to what extent learners’ L2 motivation—
including the seven motivational variables under investigation, namely,
attitude towards the L2 community, cultural interest, instrumentality,
ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, attitude towards learning English, and
intended learning effort—is related to their receptive competence (i.e.,
pragmatic awareness and comprehension) and productive competence
(i.e., pragmatic production) in L2 pragmatics. Therefore, the

RQ 1:
RQ 2:
RQ 3:
RQ 4:
overarching research questions (RQ) that the present study seeks to
answer are as follows:
What is the status of language learning motivation among
Chinese university EFL learners?
To what extent does Chinese university EFL learners’ L2
motivation influence their level of L2 pragmatic awareness?
motivation influence their level of L2 pragmatic comprehension?
motivation influence their level of L2 pragmatic production?
1.4 Overview of the Chapters
This book consists of eight chapters. I will start in Chapter 2 by
reviewing the theories, concepts and studies that are relevant to the
present study. Then, Chapter 3 presents the research methodology in
terms of the mixed methods design, research site and participants,
instrumentation, data collection procedures and data analysis of the
study. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 report and discuss the main findings
according to the research questions. Specifically, Chapter 4 deals with
RQ 1, which presents the results of the investigation into Chinese
university EFL learners’ language learning motivation. Chapter 5
addresses RQ 2, which examines the results of the investigation into the
effect of L2 motivation on EFL learners’ levels of L2 pragmatic
awareness. Chapter 6 addresses RQ 3, which explores the extent to
which learners’ motivation for studying English affects their levels of
pragmatic comprehension. Chapter 7 reports on and discusses the
findings with regard to RQ 4, which examines whether learners’ L2
motivation level (high and low) plays a role in their acquisition of
pragmatic production. The final chapter provides a summary of the
main findings from the study and presents theoretical, methodological,
and pedagogical implications. It also considers the limitations of the
study and suggests further research.

References
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pragmatics. Multilingual Matters.
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Recognition and production of conversational expressions in L2 pragmatics.
Language Learning, 59(4), 755–795.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Bastos, M. T. (2011). Proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of
interaction and the acquisition of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics.
Intercultural Pragmatics, 8, 347–384.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Do language learners recognize pragmatic
violations? Pragmatic versus grammatical awareness in instructed L2 learning.
TESOL Quarterly, 32(2), 233–259.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Griffin, R. (2005). L2 pragmatic awareness: Evidence from the
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Barron, A. (2003). Acquisition in interlanguage pragmatics: Learning how to do things
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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
H. Yang, Language Learning Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Competence
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5280-7_2
2. Literature Review
He Yang1
College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University,
Xiamen, Fujian, China
He Yang
Email: yanghe@xmu.edu.cn
Abstract
This chapter first represents the theoretical framework of the study,
starting with a brief overview of pragmatics with a focus on speech acts
theories, conversational implicatures, and politeness theory, followed
by empirical studies adopting the aforementioned theories in the field
of L2 pragmatics. Then, this chapter reviews research on L2 motivation,
including Robert Gardner’s work (with a focus on the concept of
integrative motivation) and Dörnyei’s L2 motivational self system.
Given the extensive literature on L2 pragmatics and language learning
motivation, this chapter provides a concise and logical review of the
relevant theories that lay a solid theoretical foundation for the study.
Finally, empirical studies investigating the relationship between
language learning motivation and L2 pragmatic competence are
examined. The research gap on the effects of individual difference (i.e.,
motivation) on pragmatic competence is highlighted.
Keywords Speech acts – Complaints – Conversational implicatures –
Politeness theory – Language learning motivation – Integrative
motivation – L2 motivational self system – L2 pragmatic competence –
Pragmatic awareness – Pragmatic production

This study investigates the effects of language learning motivation on
the acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence in the EFL context, an area
that has received limited attention in the past. This chapter reviews
theories, concepts and studies relevant to the present study. It is
organized as follows. Section 2.1 briefly discusses the history of
pragmatics. Section 2.2 introduces a definition of L2 pragmatics, the
research scope of such pragmatics and different aspects of L2
pragmatic competence. The focus of Section 2.3 is on three important
topics in traditional pragmatics research: speech act theory, implicature
and politeness. Section 2.4 presents past research on motivations for
studying a foreign language. Finally, Section 2.5 reviews existing
empirical studies on the association between L2 motivation and L2
pragmatic competence.
2.1 Pragmatics
Pragmatics, a relatively young linguistic discipline, has its origins in the
philosophy of language and in the work of the philosopher Charles
Morris (1938), who proposed the first definition of pragmatics as “the
study of the relation of signs to interpreters” (p. 6), placing it within a
semiotic trichotomy, along with semantics (the study of the relation of
signs to what they denote) and syntax (the study of the formal relation
between one sign with another) (Huang, 2014; Levinson, 1983). All
definitions of pragmatics put forward since Morris’s work can be traced
back to this insight. However, although pragmaticians such as Stalnaker
(1972), Levinson (1983, 2000), Leech (1983), Mey (2001) and Crystal
(1997) have attempted to discuss possible definitions for pragmatics,
no consensus exists among contemporary scholars on what exactly the
discipline or concept comprises. Considering the purpose of the present
study, I adopt a widely cited definition offered by Crystal (1997, p. 301),
who defines pragmatics as:
The study of language from the point of view of users, especially
of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using
language in social interaction and the effects their use of
language has on other participants in the act of communication.

In this sense, pragmatics essentially focuses on actual language use
and the social conventions governing it. Moreover, this definition
emphasizes that pragmatics research should be conducted from both
speaker-producer and hearer-interpreter perspectives. During the
process of interaction, language users (speaker and hearer) shape and
infer meaning in a sociocultural context. Crystal further expands the
concept of pragmatics by incorporating into the definition the effects of
social interaction on interlocutors. Kasper and Rose (2002) point out
that the act of communication refers not only to speech acts, which are
among the most rigorously researched areas in pragmatics, but also to
different kinds of discourse and various speech events.
In addition, Leech (1983) and Thomas (1983) propose dividing
pragmatics into pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics.
Pragmalinguistics refers to the resources used to convey
communicative acts and relational or interpersonal meanings.
Resources of this type include pragmatic strategies such as directness
and indirectness, routines, and a large range of linguistic forms that can
intensify or soften communicative acts. For example, speakers can
choose different linguistic strategies to express their complaints, such
as You have already played rock music for hours or It’s midnight and I
need to go to work tomorrow. Although the speakers are complaining in
both cases, they directly put responsibility on the hearer only in the
first sentence. In the second sentence, they avoid directly blaming the
hearer for the music by employing non-conventional indirectness
(Blum-Kulka, 1997, p. 46). In a complaint situation, the speaker may
choose directness, indirectness or non-conventional indirectness,
depending on factors such as interpersonal distance, familiarity,
attitudes and affect.
Sociopragmatics, on the other hand, is “the sociological interface of
pragmatics” (Leech, 1983, p. 10) and refers to the social perceptions
underlying participants’ interpretation and performance of
communicative action. Speech communities differ in their assessment
of speakers’ and hearers’ social distance and social power, their rights
and obligations, and the degree of imposition involved in particular
communicative acts (Kasper & Rose, 2002). Appropriate
communicative behaviour requires speakers to assess social factors,
such as social distance, relative social power, and the degree of

imposition involved in a communicative act (Brown & Levinson, 1987),
as well as an assessment of cultural values, which determine rights and
obligations in a society (Thomas, 1983).
In summary, pragmatics as a discipline has roots in the philosophy
of language. It focuses on actual language uses and the ways in which
they are performed in a social context. Pragmatics studies encompass
both the production and the interpretation of linguistic forms.
Pragmatics consists of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Second
language pragmatics, the sub-field of pragmatics that the present study
is situated in, is reviewed in the next section.
2.2 Second Language Pragmatics and L2 Pragmatic
Competence
This section presents the theoretical basis and research scope of second
language pragmatics. Section 2.2.1 introduces the definition and
research scope of L2 pragmatics. Section 2.2.2 discusses how recent
models of communicative competence have situated pragmatic
competence as an essential component of L2 ability.
2.2.1 Definition and Research Scope of L2
Pragmatics
Over the past three decades, much attention in second/foreign
language learning research has been devoted to L2 learners’ pragmatic
competence, which has led to the establishment of the study of second
language (L2) pragmatics as one of the central areas of investigation in
second language acquisition (SLA) research (Taguchi & Roever, 2017).
L2 pragmatics, also named interlanguage pragmatics, or ILP, addresses
“nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge”
(Kasper & Rose, 1999, p. 81). As indicated by its name, L2 pragmatics
belongs to the domains of both second language acquisition and
pragmatics (Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993). The “hybrid” nature of L2
pragmatics is also reflected in Kasper and Rose’s (2002) definition of
ILP: “As the study of second language use, interlanguage pragmatics
examines how nonnative speakers comprehend and produce action in a
target language. As the study of second language learning,

interlanguage pragmatics investigates how L2 learners develop the
ability to understand and perform action in a target language” (p. 5).
Kasper and Rose’s (2002) definition underscores two important
aspects of L2 pragmatics. First, learners’ L2 pragmatic competence
should be investigated through abilities related to both pragmatic
comprehension and pragmatic production. In this sense, L2 pragmatic
competence corresponds to Crystal’s (1997) definition of pragmatics
discussed in Section 2.1. According to Kasper and Rose’s (2002)
definition of ILP, L2 pragmatic competence consists of both receptive
pragmatic perception and productive pragmatic competence. More
specifically, receptive pragmatic perception entails pragmatic
awareness and pragmatic comprehension (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001). In
this study, pragmatic awareness is operationalized as the ability to
identify pragmatic (in)felicities in a particular context (Bardovi-Harlig
& Dörnyei, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig & Griffin, 2005; Schauer, 2006, 2009),
and pragmatic comprehension refers to the ability to comprehend the
intended meaning conveyed by certain utterances (Bouton, 1992, 1994;
Taguchi et al., 2016; Taguchi, 2005, 2011b). The former is investigated
through learners’ judgement of the appropriateness of utterances in a
range of speech act scenarios, and the latter is investigated through
their understanding of conversational implicatures. In addition,
productive pragmatic competence refers to the ability to vary one’s
language use appropriately according to the social context to perform a
communicative act (Ishihara, 2006; Thomas, 1983). Such competence is
investigated in this study through learners’ written production
performance in performing the speech act of complaining.
Second, this definition also emphasizes the importance of
investigating learners’ acquisition and development of L2 pragmatic
competence (Ren, 2015). However, while some investigations into the
development of L2 pragmatics have been conducted,1 little attention
has been given to factors that might influence development. Although
some research has recently started to explore such factors,2
these
studies have predominantly examined learners as a homogenous group,
as pointed out in the previous chapter. Therefore, little is known about
how individual variation affects learners’ L2 pragmatic competence.
Empirical studies examining the impact of individual variation on
the development of L2 pragmatic competence are rather few and far

between, although Kasper and Rose (2002) push for such research to
be conducted. To date, L2 pragmatic researchers have analysed factors
relevant to learners’ individual differences, such as age (e.g., Kim, 2000;
Marriott, 1995; Regan, 1995), gender (e.g., Kerekes, 1992; Rintell, 1984;
Siegal, 1994), language aptitude (Li, 2017) and language learning
motivation (Chiravate, 2012; Cook, 2001; Takahashi, 2005, 2015;
Yamato et al., 2013; Yang & Ren, 2019).
Among these factors, language learning motivation is of
considerable importance to the present study. On the one hand, in the
field of SLA research, motivation has been considered a vital factor, as it
is very likely to “affect the rate of learning and ultimate achievement”
(Ellis, 2015, p. 46). On the other hand, in the L2 pragmatics research to
date, only a few studies have assessed L2 motivation as an independent
variable and explored its effect on pragmatic development (Tajeddin &
Moghadam, 2012; Takahashi, 2005, 2015). The limited number of
empirical investigations into learners’ motivation in L2 pragmatics
reveals an important area of research yet to be explored.
In summary, there is a need to investigate L2 pragmatic competence
through abilities related to both pragmatic comprehension and
pragmatic production. With respect to the acquisition of L2 pragmatic
competence, some empirical studies have looked at the trajectory of L2
pragmatics development. As an emerging area of study, the research on
L2 pragmatics has continued to deepen, encompassing learners’
pragmatic use and development and the factors influencing such
development. However, the power of individual variation in explaining
and predicting learners’ differences in L2 pragmatic learning has still
been largely understudied. In particular, the effects of learners’
language learning motivation on L2 pragmatic competence have been
largely unexplored.
2.2.2 Communicative Competence and L2
The purpose of the present study is to investigate L2 pragmatic
competence and its relationship to language learning motivation in an
EFL context; therefore, it is critical to discuss the term “pragmatic
competence” so as to define the scope of the research and,

subsequently, to facilitate the selection of suitable data collection
instruments to measure this competence.
Pragmatic competence derives from a broader concept—
communicative competence—which has gained attention in both
linguistics and language pedagogy since the 1970s. The term
communicative competence, coined by anthropologist and sociolinguist
Dell Hymes (1972), refers to the ability to use language accurately and
appropriately in social interactions. In his seminal work, Hymes (1972)
observes that while Chomsky’s (1957) theory may represent the
culmination of structural linguistics, the latter’s treatment of language
as an abstract mental device isolated from the uses and functions of
language should be challenged. According to Hymes (1972), a person’s
knowledge of language encompasses both grammatical knowledge and
sociocultural knowledge, and communicative competence must involve
not only the rules of grammar but also the rules of appropriate
language use.
More models of communicative competence based on Hymes’s
conceptualization have emerged (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer,
1996, 2010; Canale & Swain, 1980). These models have helped to
situate pragmatic competence as an essential component of L2 ability,
as argued by Taguchi and Roever (2017), since they highlight the fact
that communication failures can result from not understanding social
conventions or rules of communication in addition to the more obvious
failures resulting from a lack of grammatical, discourse or strategic
competences. L2 speakers should have pragmalinguistic knowledge, i.e.,
the linguistic resources in the target language L2 learners can apply to
convey their pragmatic intention. At the same time, they also need
sociopragmatic knowledge, i.e., “knowledge of the relationships
between communicative action and power, social distance, and the
imposition associated with a past or future event, knowledge of mutual
rights and obligations, taboos, and conversational practices” (Kapser &
Roever, 2005, p. 317). L2 learners need to master both of these
knowledge types so that they can choose appropriate linguistic
realizations on the basis of contextual factors (e.g., social status, social
distance, and the degree of imposition in a particular interaction) to
achieve communicative goals.

For example, learners of English should know not only the linguistic
forms of the target language but also sufficient sociocultural rules of the
target community so that they can use their L2 to achieve
communicative goals in real interactions. At the very beginning of the
book, an example of the problems caused by these issues is provided. In
the example, the two students are aware of the grammatical rules of
English, as they both understand the literal meaning of the professor’s
comment “Nice PowerPoint”, regardless of whether their interpretation
is “compliment” or “indirect criticism”. However, only the second
student succeeded in deriving the implied meaning of the utterance—
only the layout or colour of the PowerPoint was successful. This
conclusion might be drawn from his or her better sociocultural
knowledge of the target language; for example, saying something
positive or commenting on only positive aspects is a common way to
show speakers’ politeness and friendliness in English-speaking
countries. As exemplified in this case, the content and logic of a
presentation outweigh the way in those components are conveyed in
most academic settings. A competent English speaker is very likely to
consider the professor’s comment “indirect criticism” rather than a
“compliment”, as only evaluating the unimportant part of the
presentation and omitting the most relevant component is typical for
the former type of commentary in English.
This discussion somewhat supports the argument that “pragmatic
competence is multi-dimensional and multi-layered” (Taguchi & Roever,
2017, p. 8). The primary aspects of pragmatic competence encompass
pragmalinguistic knowledge and sociocultural knowledge. Sociocultural
knowledge is concerned with the ability to interpret and create
utterances that are appropriate to specific language use settings. These
two types of knowledge are equally important for L2 learners in social
interactions. As a sub-field of pragmatics, L2 pragmatics research has
based its investigations on some theoretical frameworks from general
pragmatics, such as speech act theories (e.g., Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969,
1975, 1976), the cooperative principle (e.g., Grice, 1975),
conversational implicature (e.g., Grice, 1989) and politeness theory
(e.g., Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987; Lakoff, 1973; Leech, 1983), which
I will discuss in the following section.

2.3 Pragmatic Theories Adopted by L2 Pragmatics
Research
In this section, important topics and theories in traditional pragmatics
research that have been commonly adopted in L2 pragmatics research
are outlined and discussed in depth. Section 2.3.1 primarily reviews
Austin’s and Searle’s theories of speech acts and studies on the speech
act of complaining. Section 2.3.2 introduces conversational implicature
and existing studies on the L2 comprehension of conversational
implicature. Finally, politeness theory, with a focus on the face-saving
model, is reviewed in Section 2.3.3.
2.3.1 Speech Acts Theories
Speech act theory catalyses the study of pragmatics as a field in
linguistics (Levinson, 1983). As a pragmatic theory, it inherently
involves an intention on the part of the speaker and an inference on the
part of the hearer (Birner, 2013). This section first briefly reviews the
works by two pioneers—Austin and Searle—in this field of inquiry to
provide theoretical frameworks. Then, having already been examined
to assess learners’ productive competence of L2 pragmatics in the
present study, the speech act of complaining is discussed, and the
existing research into the classifications of this act is reviewed.
2.3.1.1 Austin’s Theory of Speech Acts
Though greatly influenced by the Austrian-born British philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) and his views about language games,
speech act theory is usually attributed to the British philosopher J.L.
Austin (Huang, 2014). In his seminal book entitled How to do things
with words, Austin (1962) makes an interesting point that to utter
something is to do something. The act of speaking is, first and foremost,
an act. Reacting to the very influential philosophical movement of
logical positivism, Austin’s view, a breakthrough in linguistics, is that
some ordinary declarative sentences are not employed to make true or
false statements, as is firmly asserted by logical positivists. Rather, they
are intended not only to say things but also to actively do things; thus,
these utterances could be considered speech acts (Austin, 1962).

Accordingly, based on this notion, he introduces a threefold distinction
among the acts:
1. Locutionary act (the production of a meaningful linguistic
expression).
2. Illocutionary act (the intention or force realized by a linguistic
expression, either explicitly or implicitly).
3. Perlocutionary act (the consequences or effects an utterance has on
the hearer).
As Birner (2013) suggests, the differences between locutionary and
illocutionary acts involve the ways of performing specific acts: the
former relies on “of saying something”, while the latter relies on “in
saying something” (p. 187). In other words, the locutionary act is the
act of saying something with a certain meaning, whereas the
illocutionary act is what you intend to do by means of saying it. A
perlocutionary act is what is actually achieved by means of the speech
act. For example, in the utterance “It’s hot here!”, the locutionary act is
simply the statement that the temperature in the room is rather high.
The illocutionary act refers to what the speaker intends to achieve by
saying this sentence, in this case, that the hearer would open the
window or turn up the air conditioner. The perlocutionary effect of the
statement could be observed if the hearer interprets the utterance as a
request and makes some changes as the speaker suggested. From the
example, it might be found that the illocutionary act is speaker-based,
whereas the perlocutionary act is hearer-based.
Of the three facets of a speech act, it is the illocutionary act that has
been the core interest of pragmaticians (Levinson, 1983; Schauer,
2009). This might be because illocutionary acts are intentional and are
fully controlled by the speaker, while perlocutionary effects are not.
Moreover, illocutionary acts are more conventionally associated with
linguistic forms, while perlocutionary acts are less associated with
them (Huang, 2014).
2.3.1.2 Searle’s Contributions

Searle attempts to systematize and develop Austin’s original speech act
theory by expanding felicity conditions, formulating the typology of
speech acts, and putting forward the notion of indirect speech acts
(1969, 1975, 1979). Austin believes that there must be certain
conditions for speech acts to be successfully performed and their
illocutionary force to be achieved. These contextual (and intentional)
requirements for the felicity of a speech act are named the felicity
conditions for that act (Austin, 1962, p. 14). Searle (1969) expands on
these felicity conditions, using the speech act of promising as his model.
Searle stresses that felicity conditions are not only ways in which a
speech act can be said to be felicitous but also “jointly constitute the
illocutionary force” (Huang, 2014, p. 131). That is, the felicity
conditions are the constitutive rules, and accordingly, to perform a
speech act is to obey certain conventional rules that are constitutive of
that type of act.
Another important contribution from Searle (1975, 1979) is that he
develops a new typology of speech acts based on Austin’s taxonomy of
speech acts, and Searle’s typology remains the most influential and
widely accepted typology (Barron, 2003; Huang, 2014). Austin (1962)
classifies speech acts into five major categories: (a) verdictives—giving
a verdict, (b) exercitives—exercising power, rights, or influence, (c)
commisives—promising or otherwise undertaking a task, (d)
behabitives—showing attitudes and social behaviour, and (e) expositives
—fitting an utterance into the course of an argument or conversation.
However, this classification is built solely on the performative verb
through which a speech act is expressed (Nguyen, 2005). Therefore,
Austin’s taxonomy may exclude many speech acts, as the number of
speech acts in every language greatly exceeds the number of
corresponding performative verbs. Another concern is that “his classes
are a fuzzy set allowing for overlaps” (Sbisá, 2009, p. 236), which is
partially due to the lack of a clear or consistent conceptual framework
upon which Austin’s taxonomy rests.
Aiming at a neater typology, Searle selects three dimensions as
classification criteria for speech acts: (a) the illocutionary point or
purpose of a speech act, (b) the direction of the fit or relationship
between the words and the world, and (c) the psychological state the

act expresses (Searle, 1979, pp. 2–5). The five types of speech acts are
grouped as follows:
Representatives/assertives (These speech acts commit speakers to the
truth of the expressed proposition and thus carry a truth value; they
express the speaker’s belief).
Directives (These speech acts represent attempts by speakers to get
hearers to do something; they express the speaker’s desire/wish for
hearers to do something).
Commissives (These speech acts commit speakers to some future
course of action; they express the speaker’s intention to do
something).
Expressives (These speech acts express speakers’ psychological
attitude or state).
Declarations (These speech acts bring about changes in the world).
The third improvement Searle made in speech act theory is that he
proposes the important notion of indirect speech acts. According to
Searle (1979), a speaker says what he or she means in a direct speech
act, whereas the speaker means something more than what he or she
says in an indirect speech act (emphasis added). In other words, if there
is a direct match between structure (i.e., sentence type) and function
(e.g., illocutionary force), the act is a direct speech act. On the other
hand, if there is no direct relationship between them, it is an indirect
speech act (Barron, 2003; Huang, 2014).
Following the research traditions in pragmatics and interlanguage
pragmatics, the present study will take Searle’s typology as a basis for
discussing the speech act of complaining in the following sub-section.
2.3.1.3 Speech Act of Complaining
A complaint is generally defined as an illocutionary act in which a
speaker (the complainer) “expresses his/her disapproval, negative
feelings etc. towards the state of affairs described in the proposition
(the complainable) and for which he or she holds the hearer (the
complainee) responsible, either directly or indirectly” (Trosborg, 1995,
p. 311). In Searle’s classification, complaints are in the expressive
category because the speaker criticizes an act that has caused or may

cause an offence, and thus the speaker expects or demands some
remedial action.
Based on whether the complainee is present or not, complaints can
be divided into two categories: direct complaints and indirect
complaints (Boxer, 1993a, 1993b). Direct complaints occur when
speakers address complaints towards hearers and believe that those
hearers are accountable for the speaker’s dissatisfaction, whereas
indirect complaints occur when speakers do not hold the hearers
responsible for the offense but are conveying dissatisfaction about
themselves or someone/something that is absent (Boxer, 1993b, pp.
106–107). The latter may also be termed third party complaints since
they are made about some absent party or external circumstances. Also
described as troubles-talk, troubles-telling, troubles-talk narratives,
and troubles-sharing, indirect complaints fulfil various functions in
social interactions in everyday life (Boxer, 1996; Drew, 1998; Edwards,
2005; Jefferson, 1984; Laforest, 2009; Márquez-Reiter, 2005; Orthaber
& Márquez-Reiter, 2011; Ouellette, 2001; Traverso, 2009).
Boxer (1993b) found that indirect complaints could be perceived as
a phatic communion because people often use them as a means of
commiseration to start and carry on a conversation with strangers or
little-known interlocutors. This may establish a momentary bond
between them (p. 121). In the present study, indirect complaints will
not be investigated. That is, the present study focuses on direct
complaints—complaints about the recipient only.
Classification Systems for Complaints
Complaints are face-threatening speech acts. According to Leech
(1983), complaints are conflictive acts and are thus intrinsically
impolite. For Brown and Levinson (1987), complaints are face
threatening because the complainer expresses his or her disapproval or
criticism or display (uncontrolled) negative emotions to the
complainee, and the complaint is likely to damage or threaten either
the complainee’s positive face—the wish to be admired or appreciated
—or his or her negative face—the wish to be free from imposition, or
even both (Chen et al., 2011). Márquez-Reiter (2005, 2011) argues that
the complaint may challenge or threaten the complainer’s negative face

too, as the complainer may not wish to be seen as a person who
imposes his or her troubles on others.
In this study, a pragmatic strategy refers to a linguistic form (e.g., a
word, phrase, or sentence) that “a speaker selects on a particular
occasion, and which is recognized by the interlocutor in order to convey
pragmatic intent” (Félix-Brasdefer, 2008, p. 72). Pragmatic strategies
that carry negative evaluations of someone or some event in the given
context are referred to as complaint strategies, whereas pragmatic
strategies added to mitigate or aggravate the illocutionary force of
complaints are referred to as modifiers.
Following the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (Blum-
Kulka et al., 1989, henceforth CCSARP) coding system, the present
study analysed modifiers in the form of internal and external modifiers.
Internal modifiers are not the essential component for identifying the
illocutionary force of a speech (the head act) but serve to mitigate or
emphasize the act’s potential effects. External modifiers, on the other
hand, precede or follow the head act and affect the context in which the
head act occurs, therefore modifying the illocutionary force of the head
act indirectly (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989).
Complaint Studies in L2 Pragmatics
Like other speech acts, the speech act of complaining takes place in
daily communications, including complaints at home (e.g., Laforest,
2002; Lee, 2012), in institutional settings (e.g., Murphy & Neu, 1996) or
in service encounters (Chen et al., 2011). In this section, I will review
studies that have examined how learners of English with different L1
backgrounds formulate complaints in English. As my investigation
focuses on the effect of learners’ language learning motivation on their
L2 pragmatic production, I have only included studies related to this,
and studies concerning cultural contrasts will not be reviewed here
(see, e.g., Chen et al., 2011; Ellwood, 2008; House & Kasper, 1981).
Olshtain and Weinbach’s (1993) study is one of the first
investigations focusing on L2 complaint realizations by EFL learners.
Data were collected with a discourse completion questionnaire
involving Hebrew learners of English and native British and American
English speakers. They found that more than half of all respondents in
each group chose to perform the speech act of complaining, whereas

approximately one-third of them chose to opt out by indicating on the
questionnaire that they would prefer to “say nothing”. The results also
showed that Hebrew learners of English used more words and moves
than native speakers, especially when their interlocutors had more
power than they did. With respect to modifications, learners employed
intensifiers more frequently than native speakers.
Trosborg (1995) compared complaints in English by three groups of
Danish learners of English with complaints by native speakers of
English and native speakers of Danish and used role playing to collect
data. Based on the data obtained, Trosborg identified four main
categories of complaint strategies: (1) no explicit reproach (i.e., giving a
hint); (2) expression of annoyance or disapproval; (3) accusation, and (4)
blame. These categories are ordered from the most indirect (1) to the
most direct (4) strategy (Trosborg, 1995, pp. 315–320). The findings
showed that the total number of complaint strategies performed by
Danish learners of English was significantly lower than that of native
speakers of English. In regard to individual strategies, it was found that
the strategies performed by the learner groups and native speaker
groups were very similar, with the expression of annoyance occurring
most frequently, followed by hints, accusation and blame. However,
regarding modifications, Danish learners of English produced
significantly fewer internal modifiers (i.e., downgraders and upgraders)
than native speakers. For the external modifiers, the learners were
found to be good at providing evidence and supportive reasons to
justify their complaints, but they used fewer preparators and disarmers
than native English speakers did.
Geluykens and Kraft (2007) compared the complaint-mitigating
strategies (i.e., downgraders and upgraders) of German learners of
English and native English speakers by giving them a discourse
completion task (DCT) questionnaire consisting of six scenarios. They
found that learners used more internal modifiers than native English
speakers. This is in line with findings from previous studies that the
complaints produced by language learners were longer and more
verbose than those produced by native speakers (Trosborg, 1995).
With respect to gender differences, it was found that females,
regardless of whether they were learners or native speakers, tended to
use more mitigating strategies than males did. For example, L2 females

produced more downgraders, such as the politeness marker “please”,
than native speakers. Among all female participants, female German
learners of English employed more downgraders than female native
English speakers. On the other hand, male participants used more
negative address terms and swear words than females did. An
interesting finding is that the gender of the addressee also played a role
in the use of upgraders by participants, as more negative address terms
and swear words were used to male addressees.
By using an oral production task, Lee (2012) investigated how
complaints were realized by Cantonese learners of English from
childhood into their teens. The results showed that their complaints
were moderate in terms of directness and severity. As learners grew
older, they tended to use fewer direct strategies and show stronger
sociopragmatic awareness. Pragmalinguistically, learners had a similar
ability to produce internal modifiers (e.g., intensifiers and softeners),
whereas the teenage groups were good at producing external modifiers
and descriptions and requesting the modification of the force of the act.
To some degree, this study provides evidence for the development of
pragmatic production by Cantonese learners of English.
Based on the review of studies in this section, learners of English
are likely to use more words and moves to make complaints (Geluykens
& Kraft, 2007; Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993) but to use a smaller number
of complaint strategies than native English speakers do (Trosborg,
1995). Learners’ complaints are moderate in terms of directness and
severity (Lee, 2012). With respect to the use of internal modifications,
contradictory results have been obtained. For example, when
formulating complaints, learners used more internal modifiers, such as
intensifiers, than native English speakers when data were collected
using a written DCT (Geluykens & Kraft, 2007; Olshtain & Weinbach,
1993); on the other hand, learners used fewer internal modifiers than
native English speakers did when data were elicited through oral
production tasks (Trosborg, 1995). Concerning the external modifiers,
learners were found to be good at providing evidence and supportive
reasons to justify their complaints, but they used fewer preparators and
disarmers than native English speakers (Trosborg, 1995). Finally, the
effect of gender differences played a role in formulating complaints for
both learners and native speakers (Geluykens & Kraft, 2007).

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He heard her set down the tray, and the things rattled and clinked.
“It’s here, when you want it,” said the voice.
He fancied there was a sigh after the words, and two or three seconds
passed before the sound of softly departing footsteps followed. He listened,
with a weary look in his eyes, then went to the fireplace and leaned against
the mantelpiece for a moment. As though making an effort, he turned again
and went to the door and opened it and brought in the tray. There were
dainty things on it, daintily arranged. There was also a small decanter of
whiskey, a pint of claret and a little jug of hot water. John set the tray upon
one end of his writing table and looked at it, with an odd, sour smile. He
was really so tired that he wanted neither food nor drink, and the sight of
both in abundance was almost nauseous to him. He reflected that the
servant would take away the things in the morning, and that his mother
would never know whether he had taken what she had brought him or not,
unless she asked him, which was impossible. He took up the tray again, set
it down on the floor, in a corner, and instead of going to bed seated himself
at his writing table.
It seemed best to write to Katharine and send his letter early in the
morning. It was hard work, and he could scarcely see the words he wrote,
for the pain in his head was becoming excruciating. It was necessarily a
long letter, too, and a complicated one, and his command of the English
language seemed gone from him. Nevertheless, he plodded on diligently,
telling as nearly as he could remember what had happened to him since he
had left Katharine’s door at three o’clock in the afternoon, up to the
moment when Doctor Routh had pronounced his verdict. It was not well
written, but on the whole it was a thoroughly clear account of events, so far
as he himself could be said to know what had happened to him. He
addressed the letter and put a special delivery stamp upon it, thinking that
this would be a means of sending it to its destination quickly without
attracting so much attention to it as though he should send a messenger
himself. Then he put out the gas, drew up the shades, so that the morning
light should wake him early, in spite of his exhaustion, and at last went to
bed.
It was unfortunate that the messenger who took the specially stamped
letter to Clinton Place on the following morning should have rung the bell
exactly when he did, that is to say, at the precise moment when Alexander

Junior was putting on his overcoat and overshoes in the entry. It was natural
enough that Mr. Lauderdale should open the door himself and confront the
boy, who held up the letter to him with the little book in which the receipt
was to be signed. It was the worse for the boy, because Katharine would
have given him five or ten cents for himself, whereas Alexander Junior
signed the receipt, handed it back and shut the door in the boy’s face. And it
was very much the worse for John Ralston, since Mr. Lauderdale, having
looked at the handwriting and recognized it, put the letter into his pocket
without a word to any one and went down town for the day.
Now it was his intention to do the thing which was right according to his
point of view. He was as honourable a man, in his own unprejudiced
opinion, as any living, and he would no more have forfeited his right to
congratulate himself upon his uprightness than he would have given ten
cents to the messenger boy, or a holiday to a clerk, or a subscription for
anything except his pew in church. The latter was really a subscription to
his own character, and therefore not an extravagance. It would never have
entered into his mind that he could possibly break the seal of Ralston’s
specially stamped envelope. The letter was as safe in his pocket as though it
had been put away in his own box at the Safe Deposit—where there were so
many curious things of which no one but Alexander Junior knew anything.
But he did not intend that his daughter should ever read it either. He
disapproved of John from the very bottom of his heart, partly because he
did, which was an excellent reason, partly because there could be no
question as to John’s mode of life, and partly because he had once lost his
temper when John had managed to keep his own. So far as he allowed
himself to swear, he had sworn that John should never marry Katharine—
unless, indeed, John should inherit a much larger share of Robert
Lauderdale’s money than was just, in which case justice itself would make
it right to enter into a matrimonial alliance with the millions. Meanwhile,
however, Robert the Rich was an exceedingly healthy old man.
Under present circumstances, therefore, if accident threw into his hands
one of Ralston’s letters to Katharine, it was clearly the duty of such a
perfectly upright and well-conducted father as Alexander Junior to hinder it
from reaching its destination. Only one question as to his conduct presented
itself to his mind, and he occupied the day in solving it. Should he quietly
destroy the letter and say nothing about it to any one, or should he tell
Katharine that he had it, and burn it in her presence after showing her that it

was unopened? His conscience played an important part in his life, though
Robert Lauderdale secretly believed that he had none at all; and his
conscience bade him be quite frank about what he had done, and destroy the
letter under Katharine’s own eyes. He took it from his pocket as he sat in
his brilliantly polished chair before his shiny table, under the vivid snow-
glare which fell upon him through his magnificent plate-glass windows. He
looked at it again, turned it over thoughtfully, and returned it at last to his
pocket, where it remained until he came home late in the afternoon. While
he sipped his glass of iced water at luncheon time, he prepared a little
speech, which he repeated to himself several times in the course of the day.
In the meantime Katharine, not suspecting that John had written to her,
and of course utterly ignorant of the truth about his doings on the preceding
day, felt that she must find some occupation, no matter how trivial, to take
her mind out of the strong current of painful thought which must at last
draw her down into the very vortex of despair’s own whirlpool. It seemed to
her that she had never before even faintly guessed the meaning of pain nor
the unknown extent of possible mental suffering. As for forming any
resolution, or even distinguishing the direction of her probable course in the
immediate future, she was utterly incapable of any such effort or thought.
The longing for total annihilation was perhaps uppermost among her
instincts just then, as it often is with men and women who have been at
once bitterly disappointed and deeply wounded, and who find themselves in
a position from which no escape seems possible. Katharine wished with all
her young heart that the world were a lighted candle and that she could
blow it out.
It must not be believed, however, that her love for John Ralston had
disappeared as suddenly and totally as she should have liked to extinguish
the universe. It had not been of sudden growth nor of capricious blooming.
Its roots were deep, its stem was strong, its flowers were sweet—and the
blight which had fallen upon it was the more cruel. A frostbitten rose-tree is
a sadder sight than a withered mushroom or a blade of dried grass. It was
real, honest, unsuspecting, strong, maidenly love, and it stood there still in
the midst of her heart, hanging its head in the cold, while she gazed at it and
wondered, and choked with anguish. But she could not lift her hand to prop
it, nor to cover it and warm it again, still less to root it up and burn it.
She could only try to escape from seeing it, and she resolutely set about
making the attempt. She left her room and went downstairs, treading more

softly as she passed the door of the room in which her mother worked
during the morning hours. She did not wish to see her again at present, and
as she descended she could not help thinking with wonder of the sudden
and unaccountable change in their relations.
She entered the library, but though it was warm, it had that chilly look
about it which rooms principally used in the evening generally have when
there is no fire in them. The snow-glare was on everything, too, and made it
worse. She stood a moment in hesitation before the writing table, and laid
her hand uncertainly upon a sheet of writing paper. But she realized that she
could not write to John, and she turned away almost immediately.
What could she have written? It was easy to talk to herself of a letter; it
was quite another matter to find words, or even to discover the meaning of
her own thoughts. She did not wish to see him. If she wished anything, it
was that she might never see him again. Nothing could have been much
worse than to meet him just then, and talking on paper was next to talking
in fact. It all rushed back upon her as she moved away, and she paused a
moment and steadied herself against her favourite chair by the empty
fireplace. Then she raised her head again, proudly, and left the room,
looking straight before her.
There was nothing to be done but to go out. The loneliness of the house
was absolutely intolerable, and she could not wander about in such an
aimless fashion all day long. Again she went upstairs to her room to put on
her hat and things. Mechanically she took the hat she had worn on the
previous day, but as she stood before the mirror and caught sight of it, she
suddenly took it from her head again and threw it behind her with a
passionate gesture, stared at herself a moment and then buried her face in
her hands. She had unconsciously put on the same frock as yesterday—the
frock in which she had been married—it was the rough grey woollen one
she had been wearing every day. And there were the same simple little
ornaments, the small silver pin at her throat, the tiny gold bar of her thin
watch chain at the third button from the top—the hat had made it complete
—just as she had been married. She could not bear that.
A few moments later she rose, and without looking at herself in the
glass, began to change her clothes. She dressed herself entirely in black, put
on a black hat and a gold pin, and took a new pair of brown gloves from a
drawer. There was a relief, now, in her altered appearance, as she fastened

her veil. She felt that she could behave differently if she could get rid of the
outward things which reminded her of yesterday. It is not wise to reflect
contemptuously upon the smallness of things which influence passionate
people at great moments in their lives. It needs less to send a fast express
off the track, if the obstacle be just so placed as to cause an accident, than it
does to upset a freight train going at twelve miles an hour.
Katharine descended the stairs again with a firm step, holding her head
higher than before, and with quite a different look in her eyes. She had put
on a sort of shell with her black clothes. It seemed to conceal her real self
from the outer world, the self that had worn rough grey woollen and a silver
pin and had been married to John Ralston yesterday morning. She did not
even take the trouble to tread softly as she passed her mother’s studio, for
she felt able to face any one, all at once. If John himself had been standing
in the entry below, and if she had come upon him suddenly, she should have
known how to meet him, and what to say. She would have hurt him, and she
would have been glad of it, with all of her. What right had John Ralston to
ruin her life?
But John was not there, nor was there any possibility of her meeting him
that morning. He had shut himself up in his room and was waiting for her
answer to the letter which Alexander Lauderdale had taken down town in
his pocket, and which he meant to burn before her eyes that evening after
delivering his little speech. It was not probable that John would go out of
the house until he was convinced that no answer was to be expected.
Katharine went out into the street and paused on the last step. The snow
was deep everywhere, and wet and clinging. No attempt had as yet been
made to clear it away, though the horse-cars had ploughed their black
channel through, and it had been shovelled off the pavements before some
of the houses. There was a slushy muddiness about it where it was not still
white, which promised ill for a walk. Katharine knew exactly what
Washington Square would be like on such a morning. The little birds would
all be draggled and cold, the leafless twigs would be dripping, the paths
would be impracticable, and all the American boys would be snowballing
the Italian and French boys from South Fifth Avenue. The University
Building would look more than usual like a sepulchre to let, and Waverley
Place would be more savagely respectable than ever, as its quiet red brick
houses fronted the snow. Overhead the sky was of a uniform grey. It was
impossible to tell from any increase of light where the sun ought to be. The

air was damp and cold, and all the noises of the street were muffled. Far
away and out of sight, a hand-organ was playing ‘Ah quell’ amore
ond’ardo’—an air which Katharine most especially and heartily detested.
There was something ghostly in the sound, as though the wretched
instrument were grinding itself to death out of sheer weariness. Katharine
thought that if the world were making music in its orbit that morning, the
noise must be as melancholy and as jarring as that of the miserable hurdy-
gurdy. She thought vaguely, too, of the poor old man who has stood every
day for years with his back to the railings on the south side of West
Fourteenth Street, before you come to Sixth Avenue, feebly turning the
handle of a little box which seems to be full of broken strings, which
something stirs up into a scarcely audible jangle at every sixth or seventh
revolution. He has yellowish grey hair, long and thick, and is generally
bareheaded. She felt inclined to go and see whether he were there now, in
the wet snow, with his torn shoes and his blind eyes, that could not feel the
glare. She found herself thinking of all the many familiar figures of distress,
just below the surface of the golden stream as it were, looking up out of it
with pitiful appealing faces, and without which New York could not be
itself. Her father said they made a good living out of their starving
appearance, and firmly refused to encourage what he called pauperism by
what other people called charity. Even if they were really poor, he said, they
probably deserved to be, and were only reaping the fruit of their own
improvidence, a deduction which did not appeal to Katharine.
She turned eastwards and would have walked up to Fourteenth Street in
order to give the hurdy-gurdy beggar something, had she not remembered
almost immediately that she had no money with her. She never had any
except what her mother gave her for her small expenses, and during the last
few days she had not cared to ask for any. In very economically conducted
families the reluctance to ask for small sums is generally either the sign of a
quarrel or the highest expression of sympathetic consideration. Every
family has its private barometer in which money takes the place of mercury.
Katharine suddenly remembered that she had promised Crowdie another
sitting at eleven o’clock on Friday. It was the day and it was the hour, and
though by no means sure that she would enter the house when she reached
Lafayette Place, she turned in that direction and walked on, picking her way
across the streets as well as she could. The last time she had gone to
Crowdie’s she had gone with John, who had left her at the door in order to

go in search of a clergyman. She remembered that, as she went along, and
she chose the side of the street opposite to the one on which she had gone
with Ralston.
At the door of Crowdie’s house, she hesitated again. Crowdie was one of
the gossips. It was he who had told the story of John’s quarrel with Bright.
It seemed as though he must be more repulsive to her than ever. On the
other hand, she realized that if she failed to appear as she had promised, he
would naturally connect her absence with what had happened to Ralston.
He could hardly be blamed for that, she thought, but she would not have
such a story repeated if she could help it. She felt very brave, and very
unlike the Katharine Lauderdale of two hours earlier, and after a moment’s
thought, she rang the bell and was admitted immediately.
Hester Crowdie was just coming down the stairs, and greeted Katharine
before reaching her. She seemed annoyed about something, Katharine
thought. There was a little bright colour in her pale cheeks, and her dark
eyes gleamed angrily.
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” she exclaimed, helping her friend to take off
her heavy coat. “Come in with me for a minute, won’t you?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Katharine, going with her into the little front
room. “You look angry.”
“Oh—it’s nothing! I’m so foolish, you know. It’s silly of me. Sit down.”
“What is it, dear?” asked Katharine, affectionately, as she sat down
beside Hester upon a little sofa. “Have you and he been quarrelling?”
“Quarrelling!” Hester laughed gaily. “No, indeed. That’s impossible! No
—we were all by ourselves—Walter was singing over his work, and I was
just lying amongst the cushions and listening and thinking how heavenly it
was—and that stupid Mr. Griggs came in and spoiled it all. So I came away
in disgust. I was so angry, just for a minute—I could have killed him!”
“Poor dear!” Katharine could not help smiling at the story.
“Oh, of course, you laugh at me. Everybody does. But what do I care? I
love him—and I love his voice, and I love to be all alone with him up there
under the sky—and at night, too, when there’s a full moon—you have no
idea how beautiful it is. And then I always think that the snowy days, when
I can’t go out on foot, belong especially to me. You’re different—I knew
you were coming at eleven—but that horrid Mr. Griggs!”

“Poor Mr. Griggs! If he could only hear you!”
“Walter pretends to like him. That’s one of the few points on which we
shall never agree. There’s nothing against him, I know, and he’s rather
modest, considering how he has been talked about—and all that. But one
doesn’t like one’s husband’s old friends to come—bothering—you know,
and getting in the way when one wants to be alone with him. Oh, no! I’ve
nothing against the poor man—only that I hate him! How are you, dearest,
after the ball, last night? You seemed awfully tired when I brought you
home. As for me, I’m worn out. I never closed my eyes till Walter came
home—he danced the cotillion with your mother. Didn’t you think he was
looking ill? I did. There was one moment when I was just a little afraid that
—you know—that something might happen to him—as it did the other day
—did you notice anything?”
“No,” answered Katharine, thoughtfully. “He’s naturally pale. Don’t you
think that just happened once, and isn’t likely to occur again? He’s been
perfectly well ever since Monday, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, yes—perfectly. But you know it’s always on my mind, now. I want
to be with him more than ever. I suppose that accounts for my being so
angry with poor Mr. Griggs. I think I’d ask him to stay to luncheon if I were
sure he’d go away the minute it’s over. Shouldn’t you like to stay, dear?
Shall I ask him? That will just make four. Do! I shall feel that I’ve atoned
for being so horrid about him. I wish you would!”
Katharine did not answer at once. The vision of her luncheon at home
rose disagreeably before her—there would be her mother and her
grandfather, and probably Charlotte. The latter was quite sure to have heard
something about John, and would, of course, seize the occasion to make
unpleasant remarks. This consideration was a decisive argument.
“Dear,” she said at last, “if you really want me, I think I will stay. Only
—I don’t want to be in the way, like Mr. Griggs. You must send me away
when you’ve had enough of me.”
“Katharine! What an idea! I only wish you would stay forever.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” answered Katharine, with a smile.
Hester rang the bell, and the immaculate and magnificent Fletcher
appeared to receive her orders about the luncheon. Katharine meanwhile
began to wonder at herself. She was so unlike what she had been a few
hours earlier, in the early morning, alone in her room. She wondered

whether, after all, she were not heartless, or whether the memory of all that
had lately happened to her might not be softened, like that of a bad dream,
which is horrible while it lasts, and at which one laughs at breakfast,
knowing that it has had no reality. Had her marriage any reality? Last night,
before the ball, the question would have seemed blasphemous. It presented
itself quite naturally just now. What value had that contract? What power
had the words of any man, priest or layman, to tie her forever to one who
had not the common decency to behave like a gentleman, and to keep his
appointment with her on the same evening—on the evening of their
wedding day? Was there a mysterious magic in the mere words, which
made them like a witch’s spell in a fairy story? She had not seen him since.
What was he doing? Had he not even enough respect for her to send her a
line of apology? Merely what any man would have sent who had missed an
appointment? Had she sold her soul into bondage for the term of her natural
life by uttering two words—‘I will’? It was only her soul, after all. She had
not seen his face save for a moment at her own door in the afternoon. Did
he think that since they had been married he need not have even the most
common consideration for her? It seemed so. What had she dreamed, what
had she imagined during all those weeks and months before last Monday,
while she had been making up her mind that she would sacrifice anything
and everything for the sake of making him happy? She could not be
mistaken, now, for she was thinking it all over quite coldly during these two
minutes, while Hester was speaking to the butler. She was more than cold.
She was indifferent. She could have gone back to her room and put on her
grey frock, and the little silver pin again, and could have looked at herself
in the mirror for an hour without any sensation but that of wonder—
amazement at her own folly.
Talk of love! There was love between Walter Crowdie and his wife.
Hester could not be with any one for five minutes without speaking of him,
and as for Crowdie himself, he was infatuated. Everybody said so.
Katharine pardoned him his pale face, his red lips, and the
incomprehensible repulsion she felt for him, because he loved his wife.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Katharine and Hester went up to the studio together, and Hester opened
the door.
“I’ve brought your sitter, Walter,” she said, announcing Katharine. “I’ve
come back with a reinforcement.”
“Oh, Miss Lauderdale, how do you do?” Crowdie came forward. “Do
you know Mr. Griggs?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes, he was introduced to me last night,” explained Katharine in an
undertone, and bending her head graciously as the elderly man bowed from
a distance.
“Oh! that’s very nice,” observed Crowdie. “I didn’t know whether you
had met. I hate introducing people. They’re apt to remember it against one.
Griggs is an old friend, Miss Lauderdale.”
Katharine looked at the painter and thought he was less repulsive than
usual.
“I know,” she answered. “Do you really want me to sit this morning, Mr.
Crowdie? You know, we said Friday—”
“Of course I do! There’s your chair, all ready for you—just where it was
last time. And the thing—it isn’t a picture yet—is in the corner here. Hester,
dear, just help Miss Lauderdale to take off her hat, won’t you?”
He crossed the room as he spoke, and began to wheel up the easel on
which Katharine’s portrait stood. Griggs said nothing, but watched the two
women as they stood together, trying to understand the very opposite
impressions they made upon him, and wondering with an excess of
cynicism which Crowdie thought the more beautiful. For his own part, he
fancied that he should prefer Hester’s face and Katharine’s character, as he
judged it from her appearance.
Presently Katharine seated herself, trying to assume the pose she had
taken at the first sitting. Crowdie disappeared behind the curtain in search
of paint and brushes, and Hester sat down on the edge of a huge divan. As
there was no chair except Katharine’s, Griggs seated himself on the divan
beside Mrs. Crowdie.

“There’s never more than one chair here,” she explained. “It’s for the
sitter, or the buyer, or the lion-hunter, according to the time of day. Other
people must sit on the divan or on the floor.”
“Yes,” answered Griggs. “I see.”
Katharine did not think the answer a very brilliant one for a man of such
reputation. Hitherto she had not had much experience of lions. Crowdie
came back with his palette and paints.
“That’s almost it,” he said, looking at Katharine. “A little more to the
left, I think—just the shade of a shadow!”
“So?” asked Katharine, turning her head a very little.
“Yes—only for a moment—while I look at you. Afterwards you needn’t
keep so very still.”
“Yes—I know. The same as last time.”
Meanwhile, Hester remembered that she had not yet asked Griggs to stay
to luncheon, though she had taken it for granted that he would.
“Won’t you stay and lunch with us?” she asked. “Miss Lauderdale says
she will, and I’ve told them to set a place for you. We shall be four. Do, if
you can!”
“You’re awfully kind, Mrs. Crowdie,” answered Griggs. “I wish I could.
I believe I have an engagement.”
“Oh, of course you have. But that’s no reason.” Hester spoke with great
conviction. “I daresay you made that particular engagement very much
against your will. At all events, you mean to stay, because you only say you
‘believe’ you’re engaged. If you didn’t mean to stay, you would say at once
that you ‘had’ an engagement which you couldn’t break. Wouldn’t you?
Therefore you will.”
“That’s a remarkable piece of logic,” observed Griggs, smiling.
“Besides, you’re a lion just now, because you’ve been away so long. So
you can break as many engagements as you please—it won’t make any
difference.”
“There’s a plain and unadorned contempt for social rules in that, which
appeals to me. Thanks; if you’ll let me, I’ll stay.”
“Of course!” Hester laughed. “You see I’m married to a lion, so I know
just what lions do. Walter, Katharine and Mr. Griggs are going to stay to
luncheon.”

“I’m delighted,” answered Crowdie, from behind his easel. He was
putting in background with an enormous brush. “I say, Griggs—” he began
again.
“Well?”
“Do you like Rockaways or Blue Points? I’m sure Hester has forgotten.”
“ ‘When love was the pearl of’ my ‘oyster,’ I used to prefer Blue Points,”
answered Griggs, meditatively.
“So does Walter,” said Mrs. Crowdie.
“Was that a quotation—or what?” asked Katharine, speaking to Crowdie
in an undertone.
“Swinburne,” answered the painter, indistinctly, for he had one of his
brushes between his teeth.
“Not that it makes any difference what a man eats,” observed Griggs in
the same thoughtful tone. “I once lived for five weeks on ship biscuit and
raw apples.”
“Good heavens!” laughed Hester. “Where was that? In a shipwreck?”
“No; in New York. It wasn’t bad. I used to eat a pound a day—there
were twelve to a pound of the white pilot-bread, and four apples.”
“Do you mean to say that you were deliberately starving yourself? What
for?”
“Oh, no! I had no money, and I wanted to write a book, so that I couldn’t
get anything for my work till it was done. It wasn’t like little jobs that one’s
paid for at once.”
“How funny!” exclaimed Hester. “Did you hear that, Walter?” she asked.
“Yes; but he’s done all sorts of things.”
“Were you ever as hard up as that, Walter?”
“Not for so long; but I’ve had my days. Haven’t I, Griggs? Do you
remember—in Paris—when we tried to make an omelet without eggs, by
the recipe out of the ‘Noble Booke of Cookerie,’ and I wanted to colour it
with yellow ochre, and you said it was poisonous? I’ve often thought that if
we’d had some saffron, it would have turned out better.”
“You cooked it too much,” answered Griggs, gravely. “It tasted like an
old binding of a book—all parchment and leathery. There’s nothing in that
recipe anyhow. You can’t make an omelet without eggs. I got hold of the

book again, and copied it out and persuaded the great man at Voisin’s to try
it. But he couldn’t do anything with it. It wasn’t much better than ours.”
“I’m glad to know that,” said Crowdie. “I’ve often thought of it and
wondered whether we hadn’t made some mistake.”
Katharine was amused by what the two men said. She had supposed that
a famous painter and a well-known writer, who probably did not spend a
morning together more than two or three times a year, would talk
profoundly of literature and art. But it was interesting, nevertheless, to hear
them speak of little incidents which threw a side-light on their former lives.
“Do people who succeed always have such a dreadfully hard time of it?”
she asked, addressing the question to both men.
“Oh, I suppose most of them do,” answered Crowdie, indifferently.
“ ‘Jordan’s a hard road to travel,’ ” observed Griggs, mechanically.
“Sing it, Walter—it is so funny!” suggested Hester.
“What?” asked the painter.
“ ‘Jordan’s a hard road’—”
“Oh, I can’t sing and paint. Besides, we’re driving Miss Lauderdale
distracted. Aren’t we, Miss Lauderdale?”
“Not at all. I like to hear you two talk—as you wouldn’t to a reporter, for
instance. Tell me something more about what you did in Paris. Did you live
together?”
“Oh, dear, no! Griggs was a sort of little great man already in those days,
and he used to stay at Meurice’s—except when he had no money, and then
he used to sleep in the Calais train—he got nearly ten hours in that way—
and he had a free pass—coming back to Paris in time for breakfast. He got
smashed once, and then he gave it up.”
“That’s pure invention, Crowdie,” said Griggs.
“Oh, I know it is. But it sounds well, and we always used to say it was
true because you were perpetually rushing backwards and forwards. Oh, no,
Miss Lauderdale—Griggs had begun to ‘arrive’ then, but I was only a
student. You don’t suppose we’re the same age, do you?”
“Oh, Walter!” exclaimed Hester, as though the suggestion were an insult.
“Yes, Griggs is—how old are you, Griggs? I’ve forgotten. About fifty,
aren’t you?”

“About fifty thousand, or thereabouts,” answered the literary man, with a
good-humoured smile.
Katharine looked at him, turning completely round, for he and Mrs.
Crowdie were sitting on the divan behind her. She thought his face was old,
especially the eyes and the upper part, but his figure had the sinewy
elasticity of youth even as he sat there, bending forward, with his hands
folded on his knees. She wished she might be with him alone for a while,
for she longed to make him talk about himself.
“You always seemed the same age, to me, even then,” said Crowdie.
“Does Mr. Crowdie mean that you were never young, Mr. Griggs?”
asked Katharine, who had resumed her pose and was facing the artist.
“We neither of us mean anything,” said Crowdie, with a soft laugh.
“That’s reassuring!” exclaimed Katharine, a little annoyed, for Crowdie
laughed as though he knew more about Griggs than he could or would tell.
“I believe it’s the truth,” said Griggs himself. “We don’t mean anything
especial, except a little chaff. It’s so nice to be idiotic and not to have to
make speeches.”
“I hate speeches,” said Katharine. “But what I began by asking was this.
Must people necessarily have a very hard time in order to succeed at
anything? You’re both successful men—you ought to know.”
“They say that the wives of great men have the hardest time,” said
Griggs. “What do you think, Mrs. Crowdie?”
“Be reasonable!” exclaimed Hester. “Answer Miss Lauderdale’s
question—if any one can, you can.”
“It depends—” answered Griggs, thoughtfully. “Christopher Columbus
—”
“Oh, I don’t mean Christopher Columbus, nor any one like him!”
Katharine laughed, but a little impatiently. “I mean modern people, like you
two.”
“Oh—modern people. I see.” Mr. Griggs spoke in a very absent tone.
“Don’t be so hopelessly dull, Griggs!” protested Crowdie. “You’re here
to amuse Miss Lauderdale.”
“Yes—I know I am. I was thinking just then. Please don’t think me rude,
Miss Lauderdale. You asked rather a big question.”

“Oh—I didn’t mean to put you to the trouble of thinking—”
“By the bye, Miss Lauderdale,” interrupted Crowdie, “you’re all in black
to-day, and on Wednesday you were in grey. It makes a good deal of
difference, you know, if we are to go on. Which is to be in the picture? We
must decide now, if you don’t mind.”
“What a fellow you are, Crowdie!” exclaimed Griggs.
“I’ll have it black, if it’s the same to you,” said Katharine, answering the
painter’s question.
“What are you abusing me for, Griggs?” asked Crowdie, looking round
his easel.
“For interrupting. You always do. Miss Lauderdale asked me a question,
and you sprang at me like a fiery and untamed wild-cat because I didn’t
answer it—and then you interrupt and begin to talk about dress.”
“I didn’t suppose you had finished thinking already,” answered Crowdie,
calmly. “It generally takes you longer. All right. Go ahead. The curtain’s up!
The anchor’s weighed—all sorts of things! I’m listening. Miss Lauderdale,
if you could look at me for one moment—”
“There you go again!” exclaimed Griggs.
“Bless your old heart, man—I’m working, and you’re doing nothing. I
have the right of way. Haven’t I, Miss Lauderdale?”
“Of course,” answered Katharine. “But I want to hear Mr. Griggs—”
“ ‘Griggs on Struggles’—it sounds like the title of a law book,” observed
Crowdie.
“You seem playful this morning,” said Griggs. “What makes you so
terribly pleasant?”
“The sight of you, my dear fellow, writhing under Miss Lauderdale’s
questions.”
“Doesn’t Mr. Griggs like to be asked general questions?” enquired
Katharine, innocently.
“It’s not that, Miss Lauderdale,” said Griggs, answering her question.
“It’s not that. I’m a fidgety old person, I suppose, and I don’t like to answer
at random, and your question is a very big one. Not as a matter of fact. It’s
perfectly easy to say yes, or no, just as one feels about it, or according to
one’s own experience. In that way, I should be inclined to say that it’s a
matter of accident and circumstances—whether men who succeed have to

go through many material difficulties or not. You don’t hear much of all
those who struggle and never succeed, or who are heard of for a moment
and then sink. They’re by far the most numerous. Lots of successful men
have never been poor, if that’s what you mean by hard times—even in art
and literature. Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Chaucer,
Montaigne, Goethe, Byron—you can name any number who never went
through anything like what nine students out of ten in Paris, for instance,
suffer cheerfully. It certainly does not follow that because a man is great he
must have starved at one time or another. The very greatest seem, as a rule,
to have had fairly comfortable homes with everything they could need,
unless they had extravagant tastes. That’s the material view of the question.
The answer is reasonable enough. It’s a disadvantage to begin very poor,
because energy is used up in fighting poverty which might be used in
attacking intellectual difficulties. No doubt the average man, whose
faculties are not extraordinary to begin with, may develop them
wonderfully, and even be very successful—from sheer necessity, sheer
hunger; when, if he were comfortably off, he would do nothing in the world
but lie on his back in the sunshine, and smoke a pipe, and criticise other
people. But to a man who

“ ‘That’s good, Crowdie,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It’s distinctly good.’ ”—Vol. II., 189.
is naturally so highly gifted that he would produce good work under any
circumstances, poverty is a drawback.”
“You didn’t know what you were going to get, Miss Lauderdale, when
you prevailed on Griggs to answer a serious question,” said Crowdie, as
Griggs paused a moment. “He’s a didactic old bird, when he mounts his
hobby.”
“There’s something wrong about that metaphor, Crowdie,” observed
Griggs. “Bird mounting hobby—you know.”
“Did you never see a crow on a cow’s back?” enquired Crowdie,
unmoved. “Or on a sheep? It’s funny when he gets his claws caught in the
wool.”
“Go on, please, Mr. Griggs,” said Katharine. “It’s very interesting.
What’s the other side of the question?”
“Oh—I don’t know!” Griggs rose abruptly from his seat and began to
pace the room. “It’s lots of things, I suppose. Things we don’t understand

and never shall—in this world.”
“But in the other world, perhaps,” suggested Crowdie, with a smile
which Katharine did not like.
“The other world is the inside of this one,” said Griggs, coming up to the
easel and looking at the painting. “That’s good, Crowdie,” he said,
thoughtfully. “It’s distinctly good. I mean that it’s like, that’s all. Of course,
I don’t know anything about painting—that’s your business.”
“Of course it is,” answered Crowdie; “I didn’t ask you to criticise. But
I’m glad if you think it’s like.”
“Yes. Don’t mind my telling you, Crowdie—Miss Lauderdale, I hope
you’ll forgive me—there’s a slight irregularity in the pupil of Miss
Lauderdale’s right eye—it isn’t exactly round. It affects the expression. Do
you see?”
“I never noticed it,” said Katharine in surprise.
“By Jove—you’re right!” exclaimed Crowdie. “What eyes you have,
Griggs!”
“It doesn’t affect your sight in the least,” said Griggs, “and nobody
would notice it, but it affects the expression all the same.”
“You saw it at once,” remarked Katharine.
“Oh—Griggs sees everything,” answered Crowdie. “He probably
observed the fact last night when he was introduced to you, and has been
thinking about it ever since.”
“Now you’ve interrupted him again,” said Katharine. “Do sit down
again, Mr. Griggs, and go on with what you were saying—about the other
side of the question.”
“The question of success?”
“Yes—and difficulties—and all that.”
“Delightfully vague—‘all that’! I can only give you an idea of what I
mean. The question of success involves its own value, and the ultimate
happiness of mankind. Do you see how big it is? It goes through everything,
and it has no end. What is success? Getting ahead of other people, I
suppose. But in what direction? In the direction of one’s own happiness,
presumably. Every one has a prime and innate right to be happy. Ideas about
happiness differ. With most people it’s a matter of taste and inherited
proclivities. All schemes for making all mankind happy in one direction

must fail. A man is happy when he feels that he has succeeded—the
sportsman when he has killed his game, the parson when he believes he has
saved a soul. We can’t all be parsons, nor all good shots. There must be
variety. Happiness is success, in each variety, and nothing else. I mean, of
course, belief in one’s own success, with a reasonable amount of
acknowledgment. It’s of much less consequence to Crowdie, for instance,
what you think, or I think, or Mrs. Crowdie thinks about that picture, than it
is to himself. But our opinion has a certain value for him. With an amateur,
public opinion is everything, or nearly everything. With a good professional
it is quite secondary, because he knows much better than the public can,
whether his work is good or bad. He himself is his world—the public is
only his weather, fine one day and rainy the next. He prefers his world in
fine weather, but even when it rains he would not exchange it for any other.
He’s his own king, kingdom and court. He’s his own enemy, his own
conqueror, and his own captive—slave is a better word. In the course of
time he may even become perfectly indifferent to the weather in his world
—that is, to the public. And if he can believe that he is doing a good work,
and if he can keep inside his own world, he will probably be happy.”
“But if he goes beyond it?” asked Katharine.
“He will probably be killed—body or soul, or both,” said Griggs, with a
queer change of tone.
“It seems to me, that you exclude women altogether from your
paradise,” observed Mrs. Crowdie, with a laugh.
“And amateurs,” said her husband. “It’s to be a professional paradise for
men—no admittance except on business. No one who hasn’t had a picture
on the line need apply. Special hell for minor poets. Crowns of glory may
be had on application at the desk—fit not guaranteed in cases of swelled
head—”
“Don’t be vulgar, Crowdie,” interrupted Griggs.
“Is ‘swelled head’ vulgar, Miss Lauderdale?” enquired the painter.
“It sounds like something horrid—mumps, or that sort of thing. What
does it mean?”
“It means a bad case of conceit. It’s a good New York expression. I
wonder you haven’t heard it. Go on about the professional persons, Griggs.
I’m not half good enough to chaff you. I wish Frank Miner were here. He’s
the literary man in the family.”

“Little Frank Miner—the brother of the three Miss Miners?” asked
Griggs.
“Yes—looks a well-dressed cock sparrow—always in a good humour—
don’t you know him?”
“Of course I do—the brother of the three Miss Miners,” said Griggs,
meditatively. “Does he write? I didn’t know.” Crowdie laughed, and Hester
smiled.
“Such is fame!” exclaimed Crowdie. “But then, literary men never seem
to have heard of each other.”
“No,” answered Griggs. “By the bye, Crowdie, have you heard anything
of Chang-Li-Ho lately?”
“Chang-Li-Ho? Who on earth is he? A Chinese laundryman?”
“No,” replied Griggs, unmoved. “He’s the greatest painter in the Chinese
Empire. But then, you painters never seem to have heard of one another.”
“By Jove! that’s not fair, Griggs! Is he to be in the professional heaven,
too?”
“I suppose so. There’ll probably be more Chinamen than New Yorkers
there. They know a great deal more about art.”
“You’re getting deucedly sarcastic, Griggs,” observed Crowdie. “You’d
better tell Miss Lauderdale more about the life to come. Your hobby can’t
be tired yet, and if you ride him industriously, it will soon be time for
luncheon.”
“We’d better have it at once if you two are going to quarrel,” suggested
Hester, with a laugh.
“Oh, we never quarrel,” answered Crowdie. “Besides, I’ve got no soul,
Griggs says, and he sold his own to the printer’s devil ages ago—so that the
life to come is a perfectly safe subject.”
“What do you mean by saying that Walter has no soul?” asked Hester,
looking up quickly at Griggs.
“My dear lady,” he answered, “please don’t be so terribly angry with me.
In the first place, I said it in fun; and secondly, it’s quite true; and thirdly,
it’s very lucky for him that he has none.”
“Are you joking now, or are you unintentionally funny?” asked Crowdie.

“I don’t think it’s very funny to be talking about people having no
souls,” said Katharine.
“Do you think every one has a soul, Miss Lauderdale?” asked Griggs,
beginning to walk about again.
“Yes—of course. Don’t you?”
Griggs looked at her a moment in silence, as though he were hesitating
as to what he should say.
“Can you see the soul, as you did the defect in my eyes?” asked
Katharine, smiling.
“Sometimes—sometimes one almost fancies that one might.”
“And what do you see in mine, may I ask? A defect?”
He was quite near to her. She looked up at him earnestly with her pure
girl’s eyes, wide, grey and honest. The fresh pallor of her skin was thrown
into relief by the black she wore, and her features by the rich stuff which
covered the high back of the chair. There was a deeper interest in her
expression than Griggs often saw in the faces of those with whom he talked,
but it was not that which fascinated him. There was something suggestive
of holy things, of innocent suffering, of the romance of a virgin martyr—
something which, perhaps, took him back to strange sights he had seen in
his youth.
He stood looking down into her eyes, a gaunt, world-worn fighter of
fifty years, with a strong, ugly, determined but yet kindly face—the face of
a man who has passed beyond a certain barrier which few men ever reach at
all.
Crowdie dropped his hand, holding his brush, and gazing at the two in
silent and genuine delight. The contrast was wonderful, he thought. He
would have given much to paint them as they were before him, with their
expressions—with the very thoughts of which the look in each face was
born. Whatever Crowdie might be at heart, he was an artist first.
And Hester watched them, too, accustomed to notice whatever struck her
husband’s attention. A very different nature was hers from any of the three
—one reserved for an unusual destiny, and with something of fate’s
shadowy painting already in all her outward self—passionate, first, and
having, also, many qualities of mercy and cruelty at passion’s command,

but not having anything of the keen insight into the world spiritual, and
material, which in varied measure belonged to each of the others.
“And what defect do you see in my soul?” asked Katharine, her exquisite
lips just parting in a smile.
“Forgive me!” exclaimed Griggs, as though roused from a reverie. “I
didn’t realize that I was staring at you.” He was an oddly natural man at
certain times. Katharine almost laughed.
“I didn’t realize it either,” she answered. “I was too much interested in
what I thought you were going to say.”
“He’s a very clever fellow, Miss Lauderdale,” said Crowdie, going on
with his painting. “But you’ll turn his head completely. To be so much
interested—not in what he has said, or is saying, or even is going to say, but
just in what you think he possibly may say—it’s amazing! Griggs, you’re
not half enough nattered! But then, you’re so spoilt!”
“Yes—in my old age, people are spoiling me.” Griggs smiled rather
sourly. “I can’t read souls, Miss Lauderdale,” he continued. “But if I could,
I should rather read yours than most books. It has something to say.”
“It’s impossible to be more vague, I’m sure,” observed Crowdie.
“It’s impossible to be more flattering,” said Katharine, quietly. “Thank
you, Mr. Griggs.”
She was beginning to be tired of Crowdie’s observations upon what
Griggs said—possibly because she was beginning to like Griggs himself
more than she had expected.
“I didn’t mean to be either vague or flattering. It’s servile to be the one
and weak to be the other. I said what I thought. Do you call it flattery to
paint a beautiful portrait of Miss Lauderdale?”
“Not unless I make it more beautiful than she is,” answered the painter.
“You can’t.”
“That’s decisive, at all events,” laughed Crowdie. “Not but that I agree
with you, entirely.”
“Oh, I don’t mean it as you do,” answered Griggs. “That would be
flattery—exactly what I don’t mean. Miss Lauderdale is perfectly well
aware that you’re a great portrait painter and that she is not altogether the
most beautiful young lady living at the present moment. You mean flesh

and blood and eyes and hair. I don’t. I mean all that flesh and blood and
eyes and hair don’t mean, and never can mean.”
“Soul,” suggested Crowdie. “I was talking about that to Miss Lauderdale
the last time she sat for me—that was on Wednesday, wasn’t it—the day
before yesterday? It seems like last year, for some reason or other. Yes, I
know what you mean. You needn’t get into such a state of frenzied
excitement.”
“I appeal to you, Mrs. Crowdie—was I talking excitedly?”
“A little,” answered Hester, who was incapable of disagreeing with her
husband.
“Oh—well—I daresay,” said Griggs. “It hasn’t been my weakness in life
to get excited, though.” He laughed.
“Walter always makes you talk, Mr. Griggs,” answered Mrs. Crowdie.
“A great deal too much. I think I shall be rude, and not stay to luncheon,
after all.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Crowdie. “Don’t go in for being young and
eccentric—the ‘man of genius’ style, who runs in and out like a hen in a
thunder-storm, and is in everybody’s way when he’s not wanted and can’t
be found when people want him. You’ve outgrown that sort of absurdity
long ago.”
Katharine would have liked to see Griggs’ face at that moment, but he
was behind her again. There was something in the relation of the two men
which she found it hard to understand. Crowdie was much younger than
Griggs—fourteen or fifteen years, she fancied, and Griggs did not seem to
be at all the kind of man with whom people would naturally be familiar or
take liberties, to use the common phrase. Yet they talked together like a
couple of schoolboys. She should not have thought, either, that they could
be mutually attracted. Yet they appeared to have many ideas in common,
and to understand each other wonderfully well. Crowdie was evidently not
repulsive to Griggs as he was to many men she knew—to Bright and Miner,
for instance—and the two had undoubtedly been very intimate in former
days. Nevertheless, it was strange to hear the younger man, who was little
more than a youth in appearance, comparing the celebrated Paul Griggs to a
hen in a thunder-storm, and still stranger to see that Griggs did not resent it
at all. An older woman might have unjustly suspected that the elderly man
of letters was in love with Hester Crowdie, but such an idea could never

have crossed Katharine’s mind. In that respect she was singularly
unsophisticated. She had been accustomed to see her beautiful mother
surrounded and courted by men of all ages, and she knew that her mother
was utterly indifferent to them except in so far as she liked to be admired. In
some books, men fall in love with married women, and Katharine had
always been told that those were bad books, and had accepted the fact
without question and without interest.
But in ordinary matters she was keen of perception. It struck her that
there was some bond or link between the two men, and it seemed strange to
her that there should be—as strange as though she had seen an old wolf
playing amicably with a little rabbit. She thought of the two animals in
connection with the two men.
While she had been thinking, Hester and Griggs had been talking
together in lower tones, on the divan, and Crowdie had been painting
industriously.
“It’s time for luncheon,” said Mrs. Crowdie. “Mr. Griggs says he really
must go away very early, and perhaps, if Katharine will stay, she will let
you paint for another quarter of an hour afterward.”
“I wish you would!” answered Crowdie, with alacrity. “The snow-light
is so soft—you see the snow lies on the skylight like a blanket.”
Katharine looked up at the glass roof, turning her head far back, for it
was immediately overhead. When she dropped her eyes she saw that Griggs
was looking at her again, but he turned away instantly. She had no sensation
of unpleasantness, as she always had when she met Crowdie’s womanish
glance; but she wondered about the man and his past.
Hester was just leaving the studio, going downstairs to be sure that
luncheon was ready, and Crowdie had disappeared behind his curtain to put
his palette and brushes out of sight, as usual. Katharine was alone with
Griggs for a few moments. They stood together, looking at the portrait.
“How long have you known Mr. Crowdie?” she asked, yielding to an
irresistible impulse.
“Crowdie?” repeated Griggs. “Oh—a long time—fifteen or sixteen
years, I should think. That’s going to be a very good portrait, Miss
Lauderdale—one of his best. And Crowdie, at his best, is first rate.”

CHAPTER XXV.
Katharine was conscious that during the time she had spent in the
studio she had been taken out of herself. She had listened to what the others
had said, she had been interested in Griggs, she had speculated upon the
probable origin of his apparent friendship with Crowdie; in a word, she had
temporarily lulled the tempest which had threatened to overwhelm her
altogether in the earlier part of the morning. She was not much given to
analyzing herself and her feelings, but as she descended the stairs, followed
by Crowdie and Griggs, she was inclined to doubt whether she were awake,
or dreaming. She told herself that it was all true; that she had been married
to John Ralston on the previous morning in the quiet, remote church, that
she had seen John for one moment in the afternoon, at her own door, that he
had failed her in the evening, and that she knew only too certainly how he
had disgraced himself in the eyes of decent people during the remainder of
the day. It was all true, and yet there was something misty about it all, as
though it were a dream. She did not feel angry or hurt any more. It only
seemed to her that John, and everything connected with him, had all at once
passed out of her life, beyond the possibility of recall. And she did not wish
to recall it, for she had reached something like peace, very unexpectedly.
It was, of course, only temporary. Physically speaking, it might be
explained as the reaction from violent emotions, which had left her nerves
weary and deadened. And speaking not merely of the material side, it is true
that the life of love has moments of suspended animation, during which it is
hard to believe that love was ever alive at all—times when love has a past
and a future, but no present.
If she had met John at that moment, on the stairs, she would very
probably have put out her hand quite naturally, and would have greeted him
with a smile, before the reality of all that had happened could come back to
her. Many of us have dreamed that those dearest to us have done us some
cruel and bitter wrong, struck us, insulted us, trampled on our life-long
devotion to them; and in the morning, awaking, we have met them, and
smiled, and loved them just the same. For it was only a dream. And there
are those who have known the reality; who, after much time, have very
suddenly found out that they have been betrayed and wickedly deceived,

and used ill, by their most dear—and who, in the first moment, have met
them, and smiled, and loved them just the same. For it was only a dream,
they thought indeed. And then comes the waking, which is as though one
fell asleep upon his beloved’s bosom and awoke among thorns, and having
a crown of thorns about his brows—very hard to bear without crying aloud.
Katharine pressed the polished banister of the staircase with her hand,
and with the other she found the point of the little gold pin she wore at her
throat and made it prick her a little. It was a foolish idea and a childish
thought. She knew that she was not really dreaming, and yet, as though she
might have been, she wanted a physical sensation to assure her that she was
awake. Griggs was close behind her. Crowdie had stopped a moment to pull
the cord of a curtain which covered the skylight of the staircase.
“I wonder where real things end, and dreams begin!” said Katharine, half
turning her head, and then immediately looking before her again.
“At every minute of every hour,” answered Griggs, as quickly as though
the thought had been in his own mind.
From higher up came Crowdie’s golden voice, singing very softly to
himself. He had heard the question and the answer.
“ ‘La vie est un songe,’ ” he sang, and then, breaking off suddenly,
laughed a little and began to descend.
At the first note, Katharine stood still and turned her face upwards.
Griggs stopped, too, and looked down at her. Even after Crowdie had
laughed Katharine did not move.
“I wish you’d go on, Mr. Crowdie!” she cried, speaking so that he could
hear her.
“Griggs is anxious for the Blue Points,” he answered, coming down.
“Besides, he hates music, and makes no secret of the fact.”
“Is it true? Do you really hate music?” asked Katharine, turning and
beginning to descend again.
“Quite true,” answered Griggs, quietly. “I detest it. Crowdie’s a nuisance
with his perpetual yapping.”
Crowdie laughed good naturedly, and Katharine said nothing. As they
reached the lower landing she turned and paused an instant, so that Griggs
came beside her.

“Did you always hate music?” she asked, looking up into his weather-
beaten face with some curiosity.
“Hm!” Griggs uttered a doubtful sound. “It’s a long time since I heard
any that pleased me, at all events.”
“There are certain subjects, Miss Lauderdale, upon which Griggs is
unapproachable, because he won’t say anything. And there are others upon
which it is dangerous to approach him, because he is likely to say too much.
Hester! Where are you?”
He disappeared into the little room at the front of the house in search of
his wife, and Katharine stood alone with Griggs in the entry. Again she
looked at him with curiosity.
“You’re a very good-humoured person, Mr. Griggs,” she said, with a
smile.
“You mean about Crowdie? Oh, I can stand a lot of his chaff—and he
has to stand mine, too.”
“That was a very interesting answer you gave to my question about
dreams,” said Katharine, leaning against the pillar of the banister.
“Was it? Let me see—what did I say?” He seemed to be absent-minded
again.
“Come to luncheon!” cried Crowdie, reappearing with Hester at that
moment. “You can talk metaphysics over the oysters.”
“Metaphysics!” exclaimed Griggs, with a smile.
“Oh, I know,” answered Crowdie. “I can’t tell the difference between
metaphysics and psychics, and geography and Totem. It is all precisely the
same to me—and it is to Griggs, if he’d only acknowledge it. Come along,
Miss Lauderdale—to oysters and culture!”
Hester laughed at Crowdie’s good spirits, and Griggs smiled. He had
large, sharp teeth, and Katharine thought of the wolf and the rabbit again. It
was strange that they should be on such good terms.
They sat down to luncheon. The dining-room, like every other part of the
small house, had been beautified as much as its position and dimensions
would allow. It had originally been small, but an extension of glass had
been built out into the yard, which Hester had turned into a fernery. There
were a great number of plants of many varieties, some of which had been
obtained with great difficulty from immense distances. Hester had been told

that it would be impossible to make them grow in an inhabited room, but
she had succeeded, and the result was something altogether out of the
common.
She admitted that, besides the attention she bestowed upon the plants
herself, they occupied the whole time of a specially trained gardener. They
were her only hobby, and where they were concerned, time and money had
no value for her. The dining-room itself was simple, but exquisite in its way.
There were a few pieces of wonderfully chiselled silver on the sideboard,
and the glasses on the table were Venetian and Bohemian, and very old. The
linen was as fine as fine writing paper, the porcelain was plain white Sèvres.
There was nothing superfluous, but there were all the little, unobtrusive,
almost priceless details which are the highest expression “of intimate luxury
—in which the eye alone receives rest, while the other senses are flattered
to the utmost. Colour and the precious metals are terribly cheap things
nowadays compared with what appeals to touch and taste. There are times
when certain dainties, like terrapin, for instance, are certainly worth much
more than their weight in silver, if not quite their weight in gold. But as for
that, to say that a man is worth his weight in gold has ceased to mean very
much. Some ingenious persons have lately calculated that the average
man’s weight in gold would be worth about forty thousand dollars, and that
a few minutes’ worth of the income of some men living would pay for a
life-sized golden calf. The further development of luxury will be an
interesting thing to watch during the next century. A poor woman in New
York recently returned a roast turkey to a charitable lady who had sent it to
her, with the remark that she was accustomed to eat roast beef at Christmas,
though she ‘did not mind turkey on Thanksgiving Day.’
Katharine wondered how far such a man as Griggs, who said that he
hated music, could appreciate the excessive refinement of a luxury which
could be felt rather than seen. It was all familiar to Katharine, and there
were little things at the Crowdies which she longed to have at home. Griggs
ate his oysters in silence. Fletcher came to his elbow with a decanter.
“Vin de Grave, sir?” enquired the old butler in a low voice.
“No wine, thank you,” said Griggs.
“There’s Sauterne, isn’t there, Walter?” asked Hester. “Perhaps Mr.
Griggs—”

“Griggs is a cold water man, like me,” answered Crowdie. “His secret
vice is to drink a bucket of it, when nobody is looking.”
Fletcher looked disappointed, and replaced the decanter on the
sideboard.
“It’s uncommon to see two men who drink nothing,” observed Hester.
“But I remember that Mr. Griggs never did.”
“Never—since you knew me, Mrs. Crowdie. I did when I was younger.”
“Did you? What made you give it up?”
Katharine felt a strange pain in her heart, as they began to talk of the
subject. The reality was suddenly coming back out of dreamland.
“I lost my taste for it,” answered Griggs, indifferently.
“About the same time as when you began to hate music, wasn’t it?”
asked Crowdie, gravely.
“Yes, I daresay.”
The elder man spoke quietly enough, and there was not a shade of
interest in his voice as he answered the question. But Katharine, who was
watching him unconsciously, saw a momentary change pass over his face.
He glanced at Crowdie with an expression that was almost savage. The
dark, weary eyes gleamed fiercely for an instant, the great veins swelled at
the lean temples, the lips parted and just showed the big, sharp teeth. Then
it was all over again and the kindly look came back. Crowdie was not
smiling, and the tone in which he had asked the question showed plainly
enough that it was not meant as a jest. Indeed, the painter himself seemed
unusually serious. But he had not been looking at Griggs, nor had Hester
seen the sudden flash of what was very like half-suppressed anger.
Katharine wondered more and more, and the little incident diverted her
thoughts again from the suggestion which had given her pain.
“Lots of men drink water altogether, nowadays,” observed Crowdie. “It’s
a mistake, of course, but it’s much more agreeable.”
“A mistake!” exclaimed Katharine, very much astonished.
“Oh, yes—it’s an awful mistake,” echoed Griggs, in the most natural
way possible.
“I’m not so sure,” said Hester Crowdie, in a tone of voice which showed
plainly that the idea was not new to her.

“I don’t understand,” said Katharine, unable to recover from her
surprise. “I always thought that—” she checked herself and looked across at
the ferns, for her heart was hurting her again.
She suddenly realized, also, that considering what had happened on the
previous night, it was very tactless of Crowdie not to change the subject.
But he seemed not at all inclined to drop it yet.
“Yes,” he said. “In the first place, total abstinence shortens life. Statistics
show that moderate consumers of alcoholic drinks live considerably longer
than drunkards and total abstainers.”
“Of course,” assented Griggs. “A certain amount of wine makes a man
lazy for a time, and that rests his nerves. We who drink water accomplish
more in a given time, but we don’t live so long. We wear ourselves out. If
we were not the strongest generation there has been for centuries, we should
all be in our graves by this time.”
“Do you think we are a very strong generation?” asked Crowdie, who
looked as weak as a girl.
“Yes, I do,” answered Griggs. “Look at yourself and at me. You’re not an
athlete, and an average street boy of fifteen or sixteen might kill you in a
fight. That has nothing to do with it. The amount of actual hard work, in
your profession, which you’ve done—ever since you were a mere lad—is
amazing, and you’re none the worse for it, either. You go on, just as though
you had begun yesterday. Heaving weights and rowing races is no test of
what a man’s strength will bear in everyday life. You don’t need big
muscles and strong joints. But you need good nerves and enormous
endurance. I consider you a very strong man—in most ways that are of any
use.”
“That’s true,” said Mrs. Crowdie. “It’s what I’ve always been trying to
put into words.”
“All the same,” continued Griggs, “one reason why you do more than
other people is that you drink water. If we are strong, it’s because the last
generation and the one before it lived too well. The next generation will be
ruined by the advance of science.”
“The advance of science!” exclaimed Katharine. “But, Mr. Griggs—
what extraordinary ideas you have!”
“Have I? It’s very simple, and it’s absolutely true. We’ve had the
survival of the fittest, and now we’re to have the survival of the weakest,

because medical science is learning how to keep all the weaklings alive. If
they were puppies, they’d all be drowned, for fear of spoiling the breed.
That’s rather a brutal way of putting it, but it’s true. As for the question of
drink, the races that produce the most effect on the world are those that
consume the most meat and the most alcohol. I don’t suppose any one will
try to deny that. Of course, the consequences of drinking last for many
generations after alcohol has gone out of use. It’s pretty certain that before
Mohammed’s time the national vice of the Arabs was drunkenness. So long
as the effects lasted—for a good many generations—they swept everything
before them. The most terrible nation is the one that has alcohol in its veins
but not in its head. But when the effects wore out, the Arabs retired from the
field before nations that drank—and drank hard. They had no chance.”
“What a horrible view to take!” Katharine was really shocked by the
man’s cool statements, and most of all by the appearance of indisputable
truth which he undoubtedly gave to them.
“And as for saying that drink is the principal cause of crime,” he
continued, quietly finishing a piece of shad on his plate, “it’s the most arrant
nonsense that ever was invented. The Hindus are total abstainers and always
have been, so far as we know. The vast majority of them take no stimulant
whatever, no tea, no coffee. They smoke a little. There are, I believe, about
two hundred millions of them alive now, and their capacity for most kinds
of wickedness is quite as great as ours. Any Indian official will tell you that.
It’s pure nonsense to lay all the blame on whiskey. There would be just as
many crimes committed without it, and it would be much harder to detect
them, because the criminals would keep their heads better under difficulties.
Crime is in human nature, like virtue—like most things, if you know how to
find them.”
“That’s perfectly true,” said Crowdie. “I believe every word of it. And I
know that if I drank a certain amount of wine I should have a better chance
of long life, but I don’t like the taste of it—couldn’t bear it when I was a
boy. I like to see men get mellow and good-natured over a bottle of claret,
too. All the same, there’s nothing so positively disgusting as a man who has
had too much.”
Hester looked at him quickly, warning him to drop the subject. But
Griggs knew nothing of the circumstances, and went on discussing the
matter from his original point of view.

Language Learning Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Competence 1st Edition He Yang

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