"To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering." The quotation was
often in his mind, and he had never felt its force so profoundly as
this afternoon. The worst of it was, he did not believe himself a
victim of inherent weakness; rather of circumstances which
persistently baffled him. But it came to the same thing. Was he
never to know the joy of vigorous action?--of asserting himself to
some notable result?
He could do so now, if he chose. In his hand were strings, which, if
he liked to pull them, would topple down a goodly edifice, with
uproar and dust and amazement indescribable: so slight an effort, so
incommensurable an outcome! He had it in his power to shock the
conventional propriety of a whole town, and doubtless, to some
extent, of all England. What a vast joke that would be--to look at
no other aspect of the matter! The screamings of imbecile morality
--the confusion of party zeal--the roaring of indignant pulpits!
He laughed outright.
But no; of course it was only an amusing dream. Ho was not malignant
enough. The old-fashioned sense of honour was too strong in him.
Pooh! He would go and dine, and then laugh away his evening
somewhere or other.
Carefully he burnt the letter. To-morrow he would look in at the
office of those people, hear their story, and so have done with it.
Next morning he was still in the same mind.
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