With the inevitable passionate egotism of his humanity he almost at once
withdrew his aroused pity from her to himself. Look at himself! Was he
not also to be sympathised with? What was the object or the use of his
being alive? He worked, saved, improved his mind, voted right,
practised philosophy, and was generally benevolent; but to what end?
Was not his existence miserable and his career a respectable fiasco? He
too had lost zest. He had diligently studied both Marcus Aurelius and
Epictetus; he was enthusiastic, to others, about the merit of these two
expert daily philosophers; but what had they done for him? Assuredly
they had not enabled him to keep the one treasure of this world-zest.
The year was scarcely a week old, and he was still young enough to have
begun the year with resolutions and fresh hopes and aspirations, but
already the New Year sensation had left him, and the year might have
been dying in his heart.
And yet what could he have done that he had not done? With what could
he reproach himself? Ought he to have continued to run after a married
woman? Ought he to have set himself titanically against the conventions
amid which he lived, and devoted himself either to secret intrigue or to
the outraging of the susceptibilities which environed him? There was
only one answer. He could not have acted otherwise than he had acted.
His was not the temperament of a rebel, nor was he the slave of his
desires. He could sympathise with rebels and with slaves, but he could
not join them; he regarded himself as spiritually their superior.
And then the disaster of Hilda's career! He felt, more than ever, that
he had failed in sympathy with her overwhelming misfortune. In the
secrecy of his heart a full imaginative sympathy had been lacking. He
had not realised, as he seemed to realise then, in front of the fire in
the drawing-room of the Orgreaves, what it must be to be the wife of a
convict. Janet, sitting there as innocent as a doe, knew that Hilda was
the wife of a convict. But did her parents know? And was she aware
that he knew? He wondered, drinking his tea.
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