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"Oh, seeing the bearings of things is always poor comfort!" exclaimed the younger sister, with sudden vehemence. "Upon my word, I think it is better, after all, to absorb indiscriminately whatever idiotcy may happen to be around one, and go with the crowd."

Nay, it might almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the intellect, which the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild efforts, not of Folly, but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet from the cold and dreary solitude to which the circumstances of her early life had compelled it. Days, even weeks, passed she never spoke of Vaudemont.

See him as night falls, plodding onwards through the crowded thoroughfares of the great city; his lack-lustre eye glazed and filmy; his pale face and blue lip actually corpse-like in their ghastliness. He gazes at the passers-by with the vacant stare of idiotcy.

Bridgeman?" "Oh, quite." "She's done a great deal for me, more than I can ever repay." "Indeed." "Yes, in introducing me to the real inner circles of idiotcy. Well, in return, I've sworn " "You too!" "What do you mean?" "Oh, nothing. I beg your pardon. Please go on." She looked at him curiously, and continued. "I've sworn that is, pledged my honour, you know " "I know! I know!"

Well, God forgive us! shure you're betther off still, than the gay man you stretched the other night;" and she went on to commence her new business that of watching and consoling Larry Macdermot in his idiotcy. Thady pursued his road to the Cottage, without meeting anyone else, and with some hesitation knocked at the priest's door.

As soon as Keegan's surprise was a little abated, he perceived that the affair would probably act as a stepping-stone, on which he might walk into Ballycloran even sooner than he had hitherto thought to do; and when, as one of the jurors at the coroner's inquest, on the next morning, he saw that poor Larry had evidently fallen into absolute idiotcy, and heard that Thady had, in fact, escaped, he instantly determined to take such legal steps on behalf of his father-in-law as would put the property under his management.

If he understood what had passed, it was only in feeling, not in intelligence. He grew still and dull in the midst of that strange madness which all the time was only half-madness, a mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety with that which passes the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment he was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant eyes.

"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank idiotcy." "It's nothing of the kind, aunt." "The fancy of a boy." "He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!" "You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think yourselves men." "On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly." "Did he tell you so, child?" "Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard.

It sounds mere idiotcy, the thing is so obvious, when one reduces it to words, but yet neither men nor women themselves for the most part seem to recognize the fact that womanliness is a matter of sex, not of circumstances, occupation, or clothing; and each sex has instincts and proclivities which are peculiar to it, and do not differ to any remarkable extent even in the most diverse characters; from which we may be sure that those instincts are safe whatever happens.

The spark of patriotism which was in each man when he enlisted was dead. We detested the army, we hated the routine, we were sickened and dulled and crushed by drill. The old habit of being always on the alert for anything picturesque saved me from idiotcy.