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- 14528
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 14474
- text
- IV.
Happy is the dumb man in the hour of passion. He makes no impulsive
threats, and therefore seldom falsifies himself in the transition from
choler to calm.
Proceeding into the thoroughfare, after leaving the Apostles', it was
not very long ere Glen and Frederic concluded between themselves, that
Lucy could not so easily be rescued by threat or force. The pale,
inscrutable determinateness, and flinchless intrepidity of Pierre, now
began to domineer upon them; for any social unusualness or greatness is
sometimes most impressive in the retrospect. What Pierre had said
concerning Lucy's being her own mistress in the eye of the law; this now
recurred to them. After much tribulation of thought, the more collected
Glen proposed, that Frederic's mother should visit the rooms of Pierre;
he imagined, that though insensible to their own united intimidations,
Lucy might not prove deaf to the maternal prayers. Had Mrs. Tartan been
a different woman than she was; had she indeed any disinterested agonies
of a generous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications, however
poignant; then the hope of Frederic and Glen might have had more
likelihood in it. Nevertheless, the experiment was tried, but signally
failed.
In the combined presence of her mother, Pierre, Isabel, and Delly; and
addressing Pierre and Isabel as Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning; Lucy took the
most solemn vows upon herself, to reside with her present host and
hostess until they should cast her off. In vain her by turns suppliant,
and exasperated mother went down on her knees to her, or seemed almost
on the point of smiting her; in vain she painted all the scorn and the
loathing; sideways hinted of the handsome and gallant Glen; threatened
her that in case she persisted, her entire family would renounce her;
and though she should be starving, would not bestow one morsel upon such
a recreant, and infinitely worse than dishonorable girl.
To all this, Lucy--now entirely unmenaced in person--replied in the
gentlest and most heavenly manner; yet with a collectedness, and
steadfastness, from which there was nothing to hope. What she was doing
was not of herself; she had been moved to it by all-encompassing
influences above, around, and beneath. She felt no pain for her own
condition; her only suffering was sympathetic. She looked for no reward;
the essence of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well
without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of worldly wealth
and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses of drawing-rooms;
these were no loss to her, for they had always been valueless. Nothing
was she now renouncing; but in acting upon her present inspiration she
was inheriting every thing. Indifferent to scorn, she craved no pity. As
to the question of her sanity, that matter she referred to the verdict
of angels, and not to the sordid opinions of man. If any one protested
that she was defying the sacred counsels of her mother, she had nothing
to answer but this: that her mother possessed all her daughterly
deference, but her unconditional obedience was elsewhere due. Let all
hope of moving her be immediately, and once for all, abandoned. One only
thing could move her; and that would only move her, to make her forever
immovable;--that thing was death.
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