To this devotion she consecrates her fair young
existence. For this she dismisses from it all thought of ease or
pleasure, and chooses retirement and isolation; gives herself to
uncongenial studies and endless labours, and accepts, in uncomplaining
sadness, that which to such a nature is hardest of all to bear--her
father's non-appreciation of all she would be and is to him. From the
first, her life is one of entire self-consecration. The sphere of its
activities expands as years flow on, but the principle is throughout the
same. In the exquisite simplicity, purity, and tenderness of her young
love, she is Romola still. There is no self-isolation included in it.
Side by side with satisfying her own yearning heart, lies the thought
that she is thus giving to her father a son to replace him who has
forsaken him. Her first perception of the want of perfect oneness
between Tito and herself dawns upon her through no change in him towards
herself, but through his less sedulous attendance on her father. And
when at last the conviction is borne in upon her that between him and
her, seemingly so closely united, there lies the gulf that parts truth
and falsehood, heaven and hell, it is no perceptible withdrawal of his
love from her that forces on her this conviction.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57