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Lucretia — Volume 05 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 19 of 98 (19%)
unutterable, ecstatic fondness, a clinging to each other in thought,
desire, and heart, a joy more than mortal in each other's presence; yet,
in parting, not that idle and empty sorrow which unfits the weak for the
homelier demands on time and life, and this because of the wondrous trust
in themselves and in the future, which made a main part of their
credulous, happy natures. Neither felt fear nor jealousy, or if jealousy
came, it was the pretty, childlike jealousies which have no sting,--of
the bird, if Helen listened to its note too long; of the flower, if
Percival left Helen's side too quickly to tie up its drooping petals or
refresh its dusty leaves. Close by the stir of the great city, with all
its fret and chafe and storm of life, in the desolate garden of that
sombre house, and under the withering eyes of relentless Crime, revived
the Arcady of old,--the scene vocal to the reeds of idyllist and
shepherd; and in the midst of the iron Tragedy, harmlessly and
unconsciously arose the strain of the Pastoral Music.

It would be a vain effort to describe the state of Lucretia's mind while
she watched the progress of the affection she had favoured, and gazed on
the spectacle of the fearless happiness she had promoted. The image of a
felicity at once so great and so holy wore to her gloomy sight the aspect
of a mocking Fury. It rose in contrast to her own ghastly and crime-
stained life; it did not upbraid her conscience with guilt so loudly as
it scoffed at her intellect for folly. These children, playing on the
verge of life, how much more of life's true secret did they already know
than she, with all her vast native powers and wasted realms of blackened
and charred experience! For what had she studied, and schemed, and
calculated, and toiled, and sinned? As a conqueror stricken unto death
would render up all the regions vanquished by his sword for one drop of
water to his burning lips, how gladly would she have given all the
knowledge bought with blood and fire, to feel one moment as those
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