One grave criticism on the death-scene has been made, that at first sight
seems unanswerable. It is said that no such full, swift recognition
between the brother and sister, in those last moments of their
long-severed lives, is possible; because there is no true point of
contact through which such recognition, on the brother's part, could
ensue. We think, however, there is something revealed to us in the
brother which brings him nearer to what is noblest and deepest in the
sister than at first appears. He also has his ideal of duty and right:
it may not be a very broad or high one, but it is there; it is something
without and above mere self; and it is resolutely adhered to at
whatsoever cost of personal ease or pleasure. That such aim cannot be so
followed on without, to some extent, ennobling the whole nature, is shown
in his love for Lucy. It has come on him, and grown up with him,
unconsciously, when there was no wrong connected with it; but with her
engagement to Stephen all this is changed. Hard and stern as he is to
others, he is thenceforth the harder and sterner still to self.
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