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Passionately, in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free from the cavern where it lies, and bring into the full energy of day. "One goes on talking preaching babbling about love," he said to her; "what else is there to preach about? If love is not the key to life, then there is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has been till now a stern God!
"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles, is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories," murmured the sentimental Horatio. Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.
All the facts up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's replies.
Meynell's strong words his "noble lie" had lifted, as it were, a fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space a freedom, in which the spirit could move. So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous stress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law! Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable.
The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is not we that are on our defence; but they." Barron raised himself with a flushed cheek, and a stiffened mouth. Meynell's note had removed his last scruples. It was necessary to deal drastically with a clergyman who could write such things. A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily greeted their master.
If indeed any friendly consideration for him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily resented the fact. He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for Hester. His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the garden giving orders.
When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive gravity. "I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she said, thoughtfully. "But why sorry, my dear?" I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject.
This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Sheldon was moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred.
And at the thought of Barron she laughed at herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had died out of the world! "Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room. "I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a smile detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
It is the true tragedy of every fallen son of Adam that he has grown too big to live in a doll's house. These things seem somehow to escape the irony of time by not even challenging it; they are too temporary even to be merely temporal. These people are not building tombs; they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, merely building ruins.
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