His natural inborn proclivities
to the light had, through his so seldom doing the deeds of the light,
become so weak, that he hardly knew such a thing as reform was required
of, possible to, or desirable in him. Nothing seemed to him to matter
except "good form." To see and hear him for a few minutes after leaving
her and entering his club, would have been safety to Hester. I do not
mean that he was of the baser sort there, but whatever came up there, he
would meet on its own grounds, and respond to in its own kind.
He was certainly falling more and more into what most people call
_love_. How little regard there may be in that for the other apart
from the self I will not now inquire, but what I may call the passionate
side of the spiritual was more affected in him than ever previously. As
to what he meant he did not himself know. When intoxicated with the idea
of her, that is when thinking what a sensation she would make in his
grand little circle, he felt it impossible to live without her: some way
must be found! it could not be his fate to see another triumph in
her!--He called his world a circle rightly enough: it was no globe,
nothing but surface.
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