{"id":5628,"date":"2026-02-19T02:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:01:17","slug":"a-charming-woman-by-jerome-k-jerome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5628","title":{"rendered":"A Charming Woman by Jerome K. Jerome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Charming Woman by <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-man-who-would-manage-by-jerome-k-jerome\">Jerome K. Jerome<\/a> is included in his short story collection Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green published in 1891. A Charming Woman is a touching short story about a young charming woman known by all citizens.<\/p>\n<p><em>This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">A Charming Woman by Jerome K. Jerome<\/h2>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade no-lazyload\"><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">A Charming Woman by Jerome K. Jerome<\/h3>\n\n<p>\u201cNot the Mr. \u2014, really?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her deep brown eyes there lurked pleased surprise, struggling with wonder. She looked from myself to the friend who introduced us with a bewitching smile of incredulity, tempered by hope.<\/p>\n<p>He assured her, adding laughingly, \u201cThe only genuine and original,\u201d and left us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always thought of you as a staid, middle-aged man,\u201d she said, with a delicious little laugh, then added in low soft tones, \u201cI\u2019m so very pleased to meet you, really.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The words were conventional, but her voice crept round one like a warm caress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome and talk to me,\u201d she said, seating herself upon a small settee, and making room for me.<\/p>\n<p>I sat down awkwardly beside her, my head buzzing just a little, as with one glass too many of champagne. I was in my literary childhood. One small book and a few essays and criticisms, scattered through various obscure periodicals had been as yet my only contributions to current literature. The sudden discovery that I was the Mr. Anybody, and that charming women thought of me, and were delighted to meet me, was a brain-disturbing thought.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it was really you who wrote that clever book?\u201d she continued, \u201cand all those brilliant things, in the magazines and journals. Oh, it must be delightful to be clever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She gave breath to a little sigh of vain regret that went to my heart. To console her I commenced a laboured compliment, but she stopped me with her fan. On after reflection I was glad she had\u2014it would have been one of those things better expressed otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know what you are going to say,\u201d she laughed, \u201cbut don\u2019t. Besides, from you I should not know quite how to take it. You can be so satirical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I tried to look as though I could be, but in her case would not.<\/p>\n<p>She let her ungloved hand rest for an instant upon mine. Had she left it there for two, I should have gone down on my knees before her, or have stood on my head at her feet\u2014have made a fool of myself in some way or another before the whole room full. She timed it to a nicety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want you to pay me compliments,\u201d she said, \u201cI want us to be friends. Of course, in years, I\u2019m old enough to be your mother.\u201d (By the register I should say she might have been thirty-two, but looked twenty-six. I was twenty-three, and I fear foolish for my age.) \u201cBut you know the world, and you\u2019re so different to the other people one meets. Society is so hollow and artificial; don\u2019t you find it so? You don\u2019t know how I long sometimes to get away from it, to know someone to whom I could show my real self, who would understand me. You\u2019ll come and see me sometimes\u2014I\u2019m always at home on Wednesdays\u2014and let me talk to you, won\u2019t you, and you must tell me all your clever thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It occurred to me that, maybe, she would like to hear a few of them there and then, but before I had got well started a hollow Society man came up and suggested supper, and she was compelled to leave me. As she disappeared, however, in the throng, she looked back over her shoulder with a glance half pathetic, half comic, that I understood. It said, \u201cPity me, I\u2019ve got to be bored by this vapid, shallow creature,\u201d and I did.<\/p>\n<p>I sought her through all the rooms before I went. I wished to assure her of my sympathy and support. I learned, however, from the butler that she had left early, in company with the hollow Society man.<\/p>\n<p>A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in Regent Street, and we lunched together at the Monico.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met such a charming woman last night,\u201d he said, \u201ca Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, a delightful woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, do you know her?\u201d I exclaimed. \u201cOh, we\u2019re very old friends. She\u2019s always wanting me to go and see her. I really must.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I didn\u2019t know you knew her,\u201d he answered. Somehow, the fact of my knowing her seemed to lessen her importance in his eyes. But soon he recovered his enthusiasm for her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA wonderfully clever woman,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019m afraid I disappointed her a little though.\u201d He said this, however, with a laugh that contradicted his words. \u201cShe would not believe I was the Mr. Smith. She imagined from my book that I was quite an old man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I could see nothing in my friend\u2019s book myself to suggest that the author was, of necessity, anything over eighteen. The mistake appeared to me to display want of acumen, but it had evidently pleased him greatly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt quite sorry for her,\u201d he went on, \u201cchained to that bloodless, artificial society in which she lives. \u2018You can\u2019t tell,\u2019 she said to me, \u2018how I long to meet someone to whom I could show my real self\u2014who would understand me.\u2019 I\u2019m going to see her on Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I went with him. My conversation with her was not as confidential as I had anticipated, owing to there being some eighty other people present in a room intended for the accommodation of eight; but after surging round for an hour in hot and aimless misery\u2014as very young men at such gatherings do, knowing as a rule only the man who has brought them, and being unable to find him\u2014I contrived to get a few words with her.<\/p>\n<p>She greeted me with a smile, in the light of which I at once forgot my past discomfort, and let her fingers rest, with delicious pressure, for a moment upon mine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow good of you to keep your promise,\u201d she said. \u201cThese people have been tiring me so. Sit here, and tell me all you have been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She listened for about ten seconds, and then interrupted me with\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that clever friend of yours that you came with. I met him at dear Lady Lennon\u2019s last week. Has he written anything?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I explained to her that he had.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTell me about it?\u201d she said. \u201cI get so little time for reading, and then I only care to read the books that help me,\u201d and she gave me a grateful look more eloquent than words.<\/p>\n<p>I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend justice I even recited a few of the passages upon which, as I knew, he especially prided himself.<\/p>\n<p>One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. \u201cA good woman\u2019s arms round a man\u2019s neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow beautiful!\u201d she murmured. \u201cSay it again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I said it again, and she repeated it after me.<\/p>\n<p>Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted away into a corner, where I tried to look as if I were enjoying myself, and failed.<\/p>\n<p>Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found him talking to her in a corner. I approached and waited. They were discussing the latest east-end murder. A drunken woman had been killed by her husband, a hard-working artizan, who had been maddened by the ruin of his home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh,\u201d she was saying, \u201cwhat power a woman has to drag a man down or lift him up. I never read a case in which a woman is concerned without thinking of those beautiful lines of yours: \u2018A good woman\u2019s arms round a man\u2019s neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Opinions differed concerning her religion and politics. Said the Low Church parson: \u201cAn earnest Christian woman, sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that true woman\u2019s heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon higher things. A good Churchwoman, sir, a good Churchwoman, in the best sense of the word.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Said the pale aristocratic-looking young Abb\u00e9 to the Comtesse, the light of old-world enthusiasm shining from his deep-set eyes: \u201cI have great hopes for our dear friend. She finds it hard to sever the ties of time and love. We are all weak, but her heart turns towards our mother Church as a child, though suckled among strangers, yearns after many years for the bosom that has borne it. We have spoken, and I, even I, may be the voice in the wilderness leading the lost sheep back to the fold.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Said Sir Harry Bennett, the great Theosophist lecturer, writing to a friend: \u201cA singularly gifted woman, and a woman evidently thirsting for the truth. A woman capable of willing her own life. A woman not afraid of thought and reason, a lover of wisdom. I have talked much with her at one time or another, and I have found her grasp my meaning with a quickness of perception quite unusual in my experience; and the arguments I have let fall, I am convinced, have borne excellent fruit. I look forward to her becoming, at no very distant date, a valued member of our little band. Indeed, without betraying confidence, I may almost say I regard her conversion as an accomplished fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Colonel Maxim always spoke of her as \u201ca fair pillar of the State.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the enemy in our midst,\u201d said the florid old soldier, \u201cit behoves every true man\u2014aye, and every true woman\u2014to rally to the defence of the country; and all honour, say I, to noble ladies such as Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, who, laying aside their natural shrinking from publicity, come forward in such a crisis as the present to combat the forces of disorder and disloyalty now rampant in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut,\u201d some listener would suggest, \u201cI gathered from young Jocelyn that Mrs. Clifton Courtenay held somewhat advanced views on social and political questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJocelyn,\u201d the Colonel would reply with scorn; \u201cpah! There may have been a short space of time during which the fellow\u2019s long hair and windy rhetoric impressed her. But I flatter myself I\u2019ve put my spoke in Mr. Jocelyn\u2019s wheel. Why, damme, sir, she\u2019s consented to stand for Grand Dame of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League next year. What\u2019s Jocelyn to say to that, the scoundrel!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What Jocelyn said was:\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know the woman is weak. But I do not blame her; I pity her. When the time comes, as soon it will, when woman is no longer a puppet, dancing to the threads held by some brainless man\u2014when a woman is not threatened with social ostracism for daring to follow her own conscience instead of that of her nearest male relative\u2014then will be the time to judge her. It is not for me to betray the confidence reposed in me by a suffering woman, but you can tell that interesting old fossil, Colonel Maxim, that he and the other old women of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League may elect Mrs. Clifton Courtenay for their President, and make the most of it; they have only got the outside of the woman. Her heart is beating time to the tramp of an onward-marching people; her soul\u2019s eyes are straining for the glory of a coming dawn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But they all agreed she was a charming woman.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Best Jerome K. Jerome Books to Read<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3TuaIzt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3TPC7gU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3JuVXbc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/493HZaE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><br \/>\nClick on the image to buy a copy<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoyed A Charming Woman by Jerome K. Jerome check out, <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/on-cats-and-dogs-by-jerome-k-jerome\">On Cats and Dogs by Jerome K. Jerome<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Narrated by William Allan Jones, courtesy of Librivox<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Charming Woman by Jerome K. Jerome is included in his short story collection Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green published in 1891. A Charming Woman is a touching short story about a young charming woman known by all citizens. This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}