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and that it had now become

I doubt whether so much as this

Should she at the present moment be so crushed by her aunt’s demise, as to be incapable of congratulating herself upon her own success? Should she have told him, when he asked her that question upon the bridge, that there could be no marrying or giving in marriage between them, no talking on such a subject in days so full of sorrow as these? I do not know that she quite succeeded in recognizing it as a truth that sorrow should be allowed to bar out no joy that it does not bar out of absolute necessity by its own weight, without reference to conventional ideas; that sorrow should never, under any circumstances, be nursed into activity, as though it were a thing in itself divine or praiseworthy.

I met with a woman of good birth

“While I was living thus on the offal of literature, I met with a woman of good birth, and fair fortune, whose sympathies or whose curiosity I happened to interest. She and her father and mother received me favourably, as a gentleman who had known better days, and an author whom the public had undeservedly neglected. How I managed to gain their confidence and esteem, without alluding to my parentage, it is not worth while to stop to describe. That I did so you will easily imagine, when I tell you that the woman to whom I refer, consented, with her father’s full approval, to become my wife. “The very day of the marriage was fixed. I believed I had successfully parried all perilous inquiries — but I was wrong.

I never knew through whom

I was morbidly sensitive on this point. The slightest references to my father’s fate, however remote or accidental, curdled my blood. I saw open insult, or humiliating compassion, or forced forbearance, in the look and manner of every man about me. So I broke off with old friends, and tried new; and, in seeking fresh pursuits, sought fresh connections, where my father’s infamy might be unknown. Wherever I went, the old stain always broke out afresh, just at the moment when I had deceived myself into the belief that it was utterly effaced. I had a warm heart then — it was some time before it turned to stone, and felt nothing.

I sent him back his letter

and the enemy of all who are of his blood

The application failed; even a reprieve of a few days was denied. At the appointed time, my father died on the scaffold by the hangman’s hand. “Have you suspected, while reading this part of my letter, who the high-born gentleman was whose evidence hung him? If you have not, I will tell you. That gentleman was your father. You will now wonder no longer how I could have inherited the right to be his enemy, and the enemy of all who are of his blood. “The shock of her husband’s horrible death deprived my mother of reason. She lived a few months after his execution; but never recovered her faculties.

to make use of them as a poor man

In firm and foolish expectation of this, he lived far beyond his little professional income — lived among rich people without the courage to make use of them as a poor man. It was the old story: debts and liabilities of all kinds pressed heavy on him — creditors refused to wait — exposure and utter ruin threatened him — and the prospect of the sinecure was still as far off as ever. “Nevertheless he believed in the advent of this office; and all the more resolutely now, because he looked to it as his salvation. He was quite confident of the interest of his patron, and of its speedy exertion in his behalf. Perhaps, that gentleman had overrated his own political influence; perhaps, my father had been too sanguine, and had misinterpreted polite general promises into special engagements.
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