Those troubled sentiments
of our young lady of the comfortable classes are quite worthy of mention.
Her poor little eye poring as little fishlike as possible upon the
intricate, which she takes for the infinite, has its place in our
history, nor should we any of us miss the pathos of it were it not that
so large a space is claimed for the exposure. As it is, one has almost to
fight a battle to persuade the world that she has downright thoughts and
feelings, and really a superhuman delicacy is required in presenting her
that she may be credible. Even then--so much being accomplished the
thousands accustomed to chapters of her when she is in the situation of
Annette will be disappointed by short sentences, just as of old the
Continental eater of oysters would have been offended at the offer of an
exchange of two live for two dozen dead ones. Annette was in the grand
crucial position of English imaginative prose. I recognize it, and that
to this the streamlets flow, thence pours the flood. But what was the
plain truth? She had brought herself to think she ought to sacrifice
herself to Tinman, and her evasions with Herbert, manifested in tricks of
coldness alternating with tones of regret, ended, as they had commenced,
in a mysterious half-sullenness.
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