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- 2298
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 2261
- text
- always in our actions, are we our own factors. But this conceit was very
dim in Pierre; and dimness is ever suspicious and repugnant to us; and
so, Pierre shrank abhorringly from the infernal catacombs of thought,
down into which, this foetal fancy beckoned him. Only this, though in
secret, did he cherish; only this, he felt persuaded of; namely, that
not for both worlds would he have his mother made a partner to his
sometime mystic mood.
But with this nameless fascination of the face upon him, during those
two days that it had first and fully possessed him for its own, did
perplexed Pierre refrain from that apparently most natural of all
resources,--boldly seeking out, and returning to the palpable cause, and
questioning her, by look or voice, or both together--the mysterious girl
herself? No; not entirely did Pierre here refrain. But his profound
curiosity and interest in the matter--strange as it may seem--did not so
much appear to be embodied in the mournful person of the olive girl, as
by some radiations from her, embodied in the vague conceits which
agitated his own soul. _There_, lurked the subtler secret: _that_,
Pierre had striven to tear away. From without, no wonderful effect is
wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets
it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous
marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and
superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. Wonder
interlocks with wonder; and then the confounding feeling comes. No cause
have we to fancy, that a horse, a dog, a fowl, ever stand transfixed
beneath yon skyey load of majesty. But our soul's arches underfit into
its; and so, prevent the upper arch from falling on us with
unsustainable inscrutableness. "Explain ye my deeper mystery," said the
shepherd Chaldean king, smiting his breast, lying on his back upon the
plain; "and then, I will bestow all my wonderings upon ye, ye stately
stars!" So, in some sort, with Pierre. Explain thou this strange
integral feeling in me myself, he thought--turning upon the fancied
face--and I will then renounce all other wonders, to gaze wonderingly at
thee. But thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one,
thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching
countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and
space.
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