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I talk to Betsey, dear child, because I must talk, because I have an egotistical craving for response, but I must bore her very often, and I am not conscious of ever having received a suggestion from her however, God knows I am grateful for her sympathy. As the children grow older I shall have less and less of her; already I appreciate the difference.
Then Humanity intervenes with a broader vision that changes the original significance of the work, enlarges it and strips it of its first egotistical import. The Greek statues, models of the highest beauty, had been originally mere images of the temple, donated by the piety of the devotees of those times.
The ardor burning under this changeable surface, which, through some sudden cause, betrayed its presence, was so deeply hidden, however, that it seemed impossible to fathom it completely. Was she a coquette, or simply a fashionable lady, or a devotee? In one word, was she imbued with the most egotistical pride or the most exalted love?
I never had any illusions respecting the Roumanian psychology, and was quite clear in my own mind that the sincere regret at the Archduke's death was due to egotistical motives and to the fear of being compelled now to abandon the national ambition.
"Yes, sire," replied the duke, carelessly. "How quickly you disappeared from the Place de Greve." "Sire, to speak frankly, I do not like to see men suffer." "Tender heart." "No; egotistical heart, rather; then sufferings act on my nerves." "You know what passed?" "Ma foi! no." "Salcede denied all." "Ah!" "You bear it very indifferently, Joyeuse."
Such were the observations apt to drop from her under the suggestion of antique marbles or when she stood before a Titian or a Bronzino. When she uttered them, and many others besides, the effect was sometimes irritating to her adviser, who had to bethink himself a little that she was no more egotistical than the histrionic conscience required.
He was the most egotistical of mortals, and the most disinterested; he was graspingly avaricious, and profusely generous; he was treacherous, mischievous, frivolous, and mean, yet he was a firm friend and a true benefactor, yet he was profoundly serious and inspired by the noblest enthusiasms. Nature had carried these contradictions even into his physical constitution.
Then strange emotions, novel alarming desires, dreams strangely charged with feeling; an inexplicable impulse of self-abandonment began to tickle queerly amongst the familiar purely egotistical and materialistic things of boyhood and girlhood. We were like misguided travelers who had camped in the dry bed of a tropical river. Presently we were knee deep and neck deep in the flood.
When I shut myself up on account of wrong doing, I would not allow myself to read or do any thing but think of my fault. The words of my mother which had been uttered without much serious thought, were as a law to me. I became, if possible, too sensitive to my own defects; it made me rather egotistical. It seemed as if my heart had become suddenly changed.
Ricarda was less excited and egotistical, yet she talked more than Amphillis. The Thursday evening came, and the three girls, dressed in their best clothes, took their way to the Dolphin. The Court goldsmith was a more select individual than Mr Altham, and did not serve in his own shop, unless summoned to a customer of rank.
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