visibly-conquering

Updated: May 6, 2025

Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the death- scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his under-lip, and knit his brow, and sat still and struck when the whole theatre was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point, when all ears listened towards one quarter nothing being seen but the white form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her worst- hated, her visibly-conquering foe nothing heard but her throes, her gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as it seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame, bent it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground, sold every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every faculty, would see, would hear, would breathe, would live, up to, within, well-nigh beyond the moment when death says to all sense and all being "Thus far and no farther!"

Charlotte Brontë - Villette