I need
all of these, yet I get none; and when I most need, and most desire, and
most seek to obtain, I am the least provided. These are the fruits which
I have sown, however; should I shrink to gather them?
"Yet, there is one--but one of all--whom no reproach of mine could drive
away, or make indifferent to my fate. But I will see her no more.
Strange madness! The creature, who, of all the world, most loves me, and
is most deserving of my love, I banish from my soul as from my sight.
And this is another fruit of my education--another curse that came with
a mother--this wilful love of the perilous and the passionate--this
scorn of the gentle and the soft--this fondness for the fierce
contradiction--this indifference to the thing easily won--this thirst
after the forbidden. Poor Ellen--so gentle, so resigned, and so fond of
her destroyer; but I will not see her again. I must not; she must not
stand in the way of my anxiety to conquer that pride which had ventured
to hate or to despise me.
Pages:
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873