rm in the earth, that other, the
woman, poor Clotilde, astonished her compatriots by passing comedy and
tragic comedy with the gift of her hand to the hand which had slain
Alvan. In sooth, the explanation is not so hard when we recollect our
knowledge of her. It was a gentle youth; her parents urged her to it: a
particular letter, the letter of the challenge to her father, besliming
her, was shown;--a hideous provocation pushed to the foullest. Who can
blame Prince Marko? who had ever given sign of more noble bravery than
he? He had stood to defend her name and fame. He was very love, the never
extinguished torch of love. And he hung on her for the little of life
appearing to remain to him. Before heaven he was guiltless. He was good.
Her misery had shrunk her into nothingness, and she rose out of
nothingness cold and bloodless, bearing a thought that she might make a
good youth happy, or nurse him sinking--be of that use. Besides he was a
refuge from the roof of her parents. She shut her eyes on the past, sure
of his goodness; goodness, on her return to some sense of being, she
prized above other virtues, and perhaps she had a fancy that to be allied
to it was to be doing good. After a few months she buried him. From that
day, or it may be, on her marriage day, her heart was Alvan's. Years
later she wrote her version of the story, not sparing herself so much as
she supposed. Providence and her parents were not forgiven. But as we are
in her debt for some instruction, she may now be suffered to go.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS
A tragic comedian: that is, a grand pretender, a self-deceiver
Above all things I detest the writing for money
At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly
Barriers are for those who cannot fly
Be good and dull, and please everybody
Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip
Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies
Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession
Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered
Compromise is virtual death
Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath
Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change
Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position
Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur
Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men?
Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women
Fantastical
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