Rather like a woman who
loves passionately, whose ardour and jealous dread wax moment by
moment.
For what was she scheming? For food, clothing, assured comfort
during her life? Twenty-four hours ago Clara would most likely have
believed that she had indeed fallen to this; but the meeting with
Sidney enlightened her. Least of all women could _she_ live by bread
alone; there was the hunger of her brain, the hunger of her heart. I
spoke once, you remember, of her 'defect of tenderness;' the fault
remained, but her heart was no longer so sterile of the tender
emotions as when revolt and ambition absorbed all her energies. She
had begun to feel gently towards her father; it was an intimation of
the need which would presently bring all the forces of her nature
into play. She dreaded a life of drudgery; she dreaded humiliation
among her inferiors; but that which she feared most of all was the
barrenness of a lot into which would enter none of the passionate
joys of existence. Speak to Clara of renunciation, of saintly
glories, of the stony way of perfectness, and you addressed her in
an unknown tongue; nothing in her responded to these ideas.
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