Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 1851-1920 / 2008-09-17 00:00:00

But gradually there had sprung up
in her that inner sweetness, that gentle restoring flame that comes from
the life of ideas, the life of knowledge, even as a poor untrained woman
may approach it. She had shared it with no one, revealed it to no one. Her
nature dreaded rebuffs; and her father had no words sharp enough for any
feminine ambition beyond the household and the nursery.
So she had kept it all to herself, till Miss Manisty, shocked as many other
people had begun to be by her fragile looks, had bearded the General, and
carried her off to Rome for the winter. And there she had been forced, as
it were, into this daily contact with Edward Manisty, at what might well
turn out to be the most critical moment of his life; when he was divided
between fierce regrets for the immediate past, and fierce resolves to
recover and assert himself in other ways; when he was taking up again his
earlier function of man of letters in order to vindicate himself as a
politician and a man of action. Strange and challenging personality!--did
she yet know it fully?
Ah! that winter--what a healing in it all!--what a great human experience!
Yet now, as always, when her thoughts turned to the past, she did not allow
them to dwell upon it long. That past lay for her in a golden haze.
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