Knowing the duty of a daughter, I did not put the
question to _you_. You are yourself the offspring of duty."
"If you were in my place, mamma," reattempted Hesper, but her
mother did not allow her to proceed.
"In any place, in every place, I should do my duty," she said.
It was not only born in Lady Malice's blood, but from earliest
years, had been impressed on her brain, that her first duty was
to her family, and mainly consisted in getting well out of its
way--in going peaceably through the fire to Moloch, that the rest
might have good places in the Temple of Mammon. In her turn, she
had trained her children to the bewildering conviction that it
was duty to do a certain wrong, if it should be required. That
wrong thing was now required of Hesper--a thing she scorned,
hated, shuddered at; she must follow the rest; her turn to be
sacrificed was come; she must henceforth be a living lie. She
could recompense herself as the daughters who have sinned by
yielding generally do when they are mothers, with the sin of
compelling, and thus make the trespass round and full. There is
in no language yet the word invented to fit the vileness of such
mothers; but, as time flows and speech grows, it may be found,
and, when it is found, it will have action retrospective. It is a
frightful thing when ignorance of evil, so much to be desired
where it can contribute to safety, is employed to smooth the way
to the unholiest doom, in which love itself must ruthlessly
perish, and those, who on the plea of virtue were kept ignorant,
be perfected in the image of the mothers who gave them over to
destruction.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165