BOOK THE SECOND - REAPING
8. Chapter Viii - Explosion
THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James
Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his
dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome
an influence on his young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with
the fragrance of his eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke
vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with summer odours, he
reckoned up his advantages as an idle winner might count his gains.
He was not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to
it.
He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband
was excluded. He had established a confidence with her, that
absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and
the absence, now and at all times, of any congeniality between
them. He had artfully, but plainly, assured her that he knew her
heart in its last most delicate recesses; he had come so near to
her through its tenderest sentiment; he had associated himself with
that feeling; and the barrier behind which she lived, had melted
away. All very odd, and very satisfactory!
And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in
him. Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in
which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were
designedly bad, than indifferent and purposeless. It is the
drifting icebergs setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the
ships.
When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a
shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But,
when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode;
when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to
brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the
serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the
very Devil.
So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and
reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he
happened to be travelling. The end to which it led was before him,
pretty plainly; but he troubled himself with no calculations about
it. What will be, will be.
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