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LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 301
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Part Ii. Fiiattery Is Sometimes A Low Re...
throug no authorit h life , from were others driving and iier preferred into further rei exile gning . amongst She could savages brook ,
y , to living * unnoticed with royalty . In the East she dreamed of exercising a feudal power in consequence of her despotic disposition
and The comp absurdities arative affluence which . followed were most humiliating . Lady
Hester knew nothing of the true happiness which depends on the entire resignation of the will to the decrees of Providence .
To exert power and authority over others was her childish dream , —foolish enough when her follies but utterl were winked at under the the
screen of a Prime Minister's name , y contemptible as fractious ravings of a faded beauty , a forgotten favorite of society . She was unimportant now and growing oldbut her heart was still
, full of pride and excitement , and she knew nothing of that rest of the soul which is consistent with the truest energy . To her world before
overstrained imagination , it seemed as if the lay her like a vast prairie to be conqueredand she could meet dangers
, and hindrances with stubborn defiance . Her first proceeding was to hurl anathemas at her nearest
neig cared hbor little , —the Emir h for Besch her scorn yr _, Prince . His of cruel the Druses and ferocious , who probab conduct ly enoug
supp oppressed in turns lied Lad . amused Passionate y Hester herself with in her with the fancies pretext violent , and of intri weak taking gues in her the and intellect part chimerical of , she the
visions . She dreamed of a new throne , and of a still future Messiahand pretended to be the priestess of a singular worship .
_ISfo doubt , there was a method in this madness , but the spectacle was and still sanity a singular is suffici one entl . y difficult The exact to world distinction puzzl and e some had between of difference the m leading adness of "
scientific men of our age . " The I a inion" said a facetious inmate of a lunatic asylum . " The world said op " I was Without , mad , pausing I said I was to consider not ; but the the dep world th of was humor too many in thi for s
me . explanation remark , and that without the truest seeking genius to unravel should have a knotty the most question equ , all we y
may balanced mindand that the overstraining- of any one faculty may mi p mental lunge ghty fabric sea us into below . , Cowley madness , " and compares bring . The ing jud all it gment the to the other is moon the powers , keystone " tempering into beautiful of the the
harmony and the other . In facilities dreamful allowed slumber to , where run riot the , we jud have gment often is suspended revelled sublimelike Titania
in have arrant been absurditie enamoured s , supposing of monsters them . to In be this we have ; or an , illustration , have to
of fancy those with waking reason . dreams A marriage in ell which balanced between we mind the forgotten head The and head tlie and temper heart the
heart is the were first intended necessity to in a limit w each - other , and . to pull well together . where there
But how xaany minds are like a misguided household ,
Lady Hester Stanhope. 301
LADY HESTER STANHOPE . 301
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1862, page 301, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071862/page/13/
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