Nothing
is more exasperating after a failure than to be stared out of
countenance by the unworthy means we have employed. During her progress
up-stairs to the dressing-room, and brief stay there, Cornelia had ample
leisure to review her thoughts and deeds during the latter months of her
life. What a waste of time, opportunity, and emotion! It was a tragedy
of ridicule and a farce of profound pathos.
Her perception of these things was assisted by the depression which
reacted upon her previous excitement: it had an embarrassing way of
presenting, in the clearest colors, whatever in her conduct had been
most unwise and indefensible. She could have borne it easily had there
been as much as one stirring struggle for victory, even had the struggle
resulted in defeat. Her state of mind might have borne analogy to his
who, having deeply caroused overnight in celebration of some glorious
triumph, learned, upon coming to his racked and tortured senses the next
day, that it was a triumph for the other side.
Had the sense of despair been less overwhelming, had Cornelia been
merely disappointed, rage would have taken the place of depression, and
her thoughts would have run in far different channels. But there was no
hope: this was her last chance of all: hereafter a rampart would be
erected against her, which she neither was able nor dared to scale.
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