A new
feeling swept over her--a feeling which she had never known
before-- which she was never to know again. The most powerful and
the profoundest of all the instincts of humanity laid claim upon
her. But it rose before her, that instinct, arrayed--how could it
be otherwise?-- in the inevitable habiliments of a Victorian
marriage; and she had the strength to stamp it underfoot. 'I have
an intellectual nature which requires satisfaction,' she noted,
'and that would find it in him. I have a passionate nature which
requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. I have a
moral, an active nature which requires satisfaction, and that
would not find it in his life. Sometimes I think that I will
satisfy my passionate nature at all events. ...'
But no, she knew in her heart that it could not be. 'To be nailed
to a continuation and exaggeration of my present life ... to put
it out of my power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming
for myself a true and rich life'--that would be a suicide. She
made her choice, and refused what was at least a certain
happiness for a visionary good which might never come to her at
all. And so she returned to her old life of waiting and
bitterness. 'The thoughts and feelings that I have now,' she
wrote, 'I can remember since I was six years old. A profession, a
trade, a necessary occupation, something to fill and employ all
my faculties, I have always felt essential to me, I have always
longed for.
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