But it _was_ the first time
that she prayed as _they_ pray, for whom no more hope is left but in
prayer.
Here let me pause a moment for the sake of making somebody angry. A
Frenchman, who sadly misjudges Kate, looking at her through a Parisian
opera-glass, gives it as _his_ opinion--that, because Kate first
_records_ her prayer on this occasion, therefore, now first of all
she prayed. _I_ think not so. _I_ love this Kate, blood-
stained as she is; and I could not love a woman that never bent her
knee in thankfulness or in supplication. However, we have all a right
to our own little opinion; and it is not you, '_mon cher_,' you
Frenchman, that I am angry with, but somebody else that stands behind
you. You, Frenchman, and your compatriots, I love oftentimes for your
festal gaiety of heart; and I quarrel only with your levity and that
eternal worldliness that freezes too fiercely--that absolutely blisters
with its frost--like the upper air of the Andes. _You_ speak of
Kate only as too readily you speak of all women; the instinct of a
natural scepticism being to scoff at all hidden depths of truth. Else
you are civil enough to Kate; and your '_homage_' (such as it may
happen to be) is always at the service of a woman on the shortest
notice.
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