She had never from her birth until now felt
love for any one. She had never been awakened. Even her affection for her
father had been dutiful rather than instinctive. She had provoked love,
but had never given it. She had been self-centred, compulsive,
unrelenting. She had unmoved seen and let her husband go to his doom--it
was his doom and death so far as she knew.
Yet, as I thought of this, I found myself again admiring her. She was
handsome, independent, distinctly original, and possessing capacity for
great things. Besides, so far, she had not been actively
vindictive--simply passively indifferent to the sufferings of others. She
seemed to regard results more than means. All she did not like she could
empty into the mill of the destroying gods: just as General Grant poured
hundreds of thousands of men into the valley of the James, not thinking
of lives but victory, not of blood but triumph. She too, even in her
cruelty, seemed to have a sense of wild justice which disregarded any
incidental suffering.
I could see that Mr. Devlin was attracted by her, as every man had been
who had ever met her; for, after all, man is but a common slave to
beauty: virtue he respects, but beauty is man's valley of suicide.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285