Parisians, the — Volume 02 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 72 of 77 (93%)
page 72 of 77 (93%)
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observation. You say truly that the course of modern civilization has
more or less affected the relative position of woman cultivated beyond that level on which she was formerly contented to stand,--the nearer perhaps to the heart of man because not lifting her head to his height, --and hence a sense of restlessness, uneasiness; but do you suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the atoms which compose the rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only women that are made restless and uneasy? Do you not see amid the masses congregated in the wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved; but in the opinions and doctrines to which, among the masses, the sentiment gives birth, the wisdom of the wisest detects only the certainty of a common ruin, offering for reconstruction the same building-materials as the former edifice,--materials not likely to be improved because they may be defaced. Ascend from the working classes to all others in which civilized culture prevails, and you will find that same restless feeling,--the fluttering of untried wings against the bars between wider space and their longings. Could you poll all the educated ambitious young men in England,--perhaps in Europe,--at least half of them, divided between a reverence for the past and a curiosity as to the future, would sigh, 'I am born a century too late or a century too soon!'" Isaura listened to this answer with a profound and absorbing interest. It was the first time that a clever young man talked thus sympathetically to her, a clever young girl. Then, rising, he said, "I see your Madre and our American friends are darting angry looks at me. They have made room for us at the table, and |
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