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- 2708
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
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- 2649
- text
- "And you would be very stupid, brother Pierre, if you did not see
something there," said his mother, still that way pursuing her own
different train of thought. "The meaning thereof is this: Lucy has
commanded me to stay you; but in reality she wants you to go along with
her. Well, you may go as far as the porch; but then, you must return,
for we have not concluded our little affair, you know. Adieu, little
lady!"
There was ever a slight degree of affectionate patronizing in the manner
of the resplendent, full-blown Mrs. Glendinning, toward the delicate and
shrinking girlhood of young Lucy. She treated her very much as she might
have treated some surpassingly beautiful and precocious child; and this
was precisely what Lucy was. Looking beyond the present period, Mrs.
Glendinning could not but perceive, that even in Lucy's womanly
maturity, Lucy would still be a child to her; because, she, elated,
felt, that in a certain intellectual vigor, so to speak, she was the
essential opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic mind and person had both
been cast in one mould of wondrous delicacy. But here Mrs. Glendinning
was both right and wrong. So far as she here saw a difference between
herself and Lucy Tartan, she did not err; but so far--and that was very
far--as she thought she saw her innate superiority to her in the
absolute scale of being, here she very widely and immeasurably erred.
For what may be artistically styled angelicalness, this is the highest
essence compatible with created being; and angelicalness hath no vulgar
vigor in it. And that thing which very often prompts to the display of
any vigor--which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but
ambition--this quality is purely earthly, and not angelical. It is
false, that any angels fell by reason of ambition. Angels never fall;
and never feel ambition. Therefore, benevolently, and affectionately,
and all-sincerely, as thy heart, oh, Mrs. Glendinning! now standest
affected toward the fleecy Lucy; still, lady, thou dost very sadly
mistake it, when the proud, double-arches of the bright breastplate of
thy bosom, expand with secret triumph over one, whom thou so sweetly,
but still so patronizingly stylest, The Little Lucy.
But ignorant of these further insights, that very superb-looking lady,
now waiting Pierre's return from the portico door, sat in a very
matronly revery; her eyes fixed upon the decanter of amber-hued wine
before her. Whether it was that she somehow saw some lurking analogical
similitude between that remarkably slender, and gracefully cut little
pint-decanter, brimfull of light, golden wine, or not, there is no
absolute telling now. But really, the peculiarly, and reminiscently, and
forecastingly complacent expression of her beaming and benevolent
countenance, seemed a tell-tale of some conceit very much like the
following:--Yes, she's a very pretty little pint-decanter of a girl: a
very pretty little Pale Sherry pint-decanter of a girl; and I--I'm a
quart decanter of--of--Port--potent Port! Now, Sherry for boys, and Port
for men--so I've heard men say; and Pierre is but a boy; but when his
father wedded me,--why, his father was turned of five-and-thirty years.
After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard Pierre's
voice--"Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy--no fear;" and then the
hall door banged, and Pierre returned to her.
But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had completely
routed all business capacity in her mercurial son; fairly capsizing him
again into, there was no telling what sea of pleasant pensiveness.
"Dear me! some other time, sister Mary."
- title
- Chunk 11