both apparently negative of the other's existence: an
intense and ever pulsatory horror of death, a sullen contempt and often
a ferocious hatred of life. The stress of mind engendered by the
alternating of these themes of suffering would have rendered life an
unbearable burden to John, had he not found anchorage in an invincible
belief in God, a belief which set in stormily for the pomp and opulence
of Catholic ceremonial, for the solemn Gothic arch and the jewelled joy
of painted panes, for the grace and the elegance and the order of
hieratic life.

In a being whose soul is but the shadow of yours, a second soul looking
towards the same end as your soul, or in a being whose soul differs
radically, and is concerned with other satisfactions and other ideals,
you will most probably find some part of the happiness of your dreams,
but in intercourse with one who is grossly like you, but who is
absolutely different when the upper ways of character are taken into
account, there will be--no matter how inexorable are the ties that
bind--much fret and irritation and noisy clashing. It was so with John
Norton and his mother; even in the exercise of faculties that had been
directly transmitted from one to the other there had been angry
collision. For example:--their talents for business were identical; but
while she thought the admirable conduct of her affairs was a thing to be
proud of, he would affect an air of negligence, and would willingly
have it believed that he lived independent of such gross necessities.
Then his malady--for intense depression of the spirits was a malady with
him--offered an ever-recurring cause of misunderstanding. How irritating
it was when he lay shut up in his room, his soul looking down with
murderous eyes on the poor worm that writhed out its life in view of the
pitiless stars, and longing with a fierce wild longing to shake off the
burning garment of consciousness, and plunge into the black happiness of
the grave, to hear Mrs Norton on the threshold uttering from time to
time admonitory remarks.

"You should not give way to such feelings, sir; you should not allow
yourself to be unhappy. Look at me, am I unhappy? and I have more to
bear with than you, but I am not always thinking of myself.... I am in
fairly good health, and I am always cheerful! Why are you not the same?
You bring it all upon yourself; I have no pity for you.... You should
cease to think of yourself, and try to do your duty."