Henrietta's Wish; Or, DomineeringYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
General
Henrietta's Wish; Or, Domineering
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Domestic fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Frederick hid his head under the clothes, and gave way to a burst of
agony, which, silent as it was, was even more intense than his sister’s.
O! the blank that life seemed without her look, her voice, her tone! the
frightful certainty that he should never see her more! Then it would for
a moment seem utterly incredible that she should thus have passed away;
but then returned the conviction, and he felt as if he could not even
exist under it. But this excessive oppression and consciousness of
misery seemed chiefly to come upon him when alone. In the presence of
another person he could talk in the same quiet matter-of-fact way in
which he had already done to his aunt; and the blow itself, sudden as it
was, did not affect his health as the first anticipation of it had done.
With Henrietta things were quite otherwise. When alone she was quiet, in
a sort of stupor, in which she scarcely even thought; but the entrance
of any person into her room threw her into a fresh paroxysm of grief,
ever increasing in vehemence; then she was quieted a little, and was
left to herself, but she could not, or would not, turn where alone
comfort could be found, and repelled, almost as if it was an insult to
her affection, any entreaty that she would even try to be comforted.
Above all, in the perverse-ness of her undisciplined affliction, she
persisted in refusing to see her brother. “She should do him harm,” she
said. “No, it was utterly impossible for her to control herself so as
not to do him harm.” And thereupon her sobs and tears redoubled. She
would not touch a morsel of food; she would not consent to leave her bed
when asked to do so, though ten minutes after, in the restlessness
of her misery, she was found walking up and down her room in her
dressing-gown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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