Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 4 by George Meredith
page 95 of 106 (89%)
page 95 of 106 (89%)
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them we love?
There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat: and the devil said to him: "Only be quiet: do nothing: resolutely do nothing: your object now is to keep a brave face to the world, so that all may know you superior to this human nature that has deceived you. For it is the shameless deception, not the marriage, that has wounded you." "Ay!" answered the baronet, "the shameless deception, not the marriage: wicked and ruinous as it must be; a destroyer of my tenderest hopes! my dearest schemes! Not the marriage--the shameless deception!" and he crumpled up his son's letter to him, and tossed it into the fire. How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichaeans when he talks our own thoughts to us? Further he whispered, "And your System:--if you would be brave to the world, have courage to cast the dream of it out of you: relinquish an impossible project; see it as it is--dead: too good for men!" "Ay!" muttered the baronet: "all who would save them perish on the Cross!" And so he sat nursing the devil. By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and cap, and went to gaze at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee and youth without a destiny slept a dead sleep. A handkerchief was bound about his forehead, and his helpless sunken chin and snoring nose projected up the pillow, made him look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered how often he had compared |
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