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"Did you ever so much as read them, I wonder?" All the demons of self-torture were up in her now, and she loosed them on him, as if to escape from their rage. Deering hardly seemed to hear her question. He merely shifted his attitude, leaning a little nearer to her, but without attempting, by the least gesture, to remind her of the privilegeswhich such nearness had once implied.
Self-torture or hard driving is not nearly as helpful as a strong inner purpose to keep the chosen subject in the real center of conscious thought.
She shrank from all mention of the subject with her step-mother, knowing how one-sided a partisan she would be, but could not deny herself the self-torture of questioning Lola again.
The emotions of the morning and the disappointment of the intended ride, together with the dismay produced by the unexpected visitor, all combined to agitate her powerfully, and she worked herself up into a fever of self-torture and unhappiness. She ended by falling asleep and slept heavily for some hours.
The sickness passed off like the preceding pain; but the sensation had of late been often felt by Brandon, and disregarded, for few persons were less afflicted with the self-torture of hypochondria; but now, that night, whether it was more keen than usual, or whether his thought had touched on the string that jars naturally on the most startling of human anticipations, we know not, but, as he resumed his seat, the idea of his approaching dissolution shot like an ice-bolt through his breast.
In various guises, this is the most persistent form of religious self-torture. Amongst more civilised people the reason given for fasting is that it is a form of repentance, the genuineness of which is attested by voluntary punishment. But originally there seems little reason to doubt that it was adopted for a different purpose.
With cruel self-torture she dwelt upon the terrible dread, for she thought she had noticed that the best success often followed when she had expected the worst result. Fran Lerch perceived what was passing in her mind, and instilled courage until she had finished her work and held up the mirror before Barbara. The girl, whether she desired to do so or not, could not help looking in.
Thus, the twenty hard years of self-torture for this Roman lady of culture ended in the rest of the grave.
This doubt disturbed her greatly; it must be based on something more than mere self-torture, for she had not once thought of asking to whom the two-part hymn, with its tender appeal, was addressed, when Karnis had first gone through it with her alone; nor even subsequently, when she had sung it with Gorgo timidly at first, more boldly the second time, and finally without a mistake, but carried completely away by the beauty and passion of the emotions it expressed.
"But he does not attain it. The common fakir is an idiot. He may, by fasting and self-torture, of a kind no adept would approve, sharpen his senses till he can hear and see some sounds and sights inaudible and invisible to you and me.
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