ment) to abjure meat. The body loathed it, and
consequently the mind of the invalided lady shrank away in horror of the
bleeding joints, and the increasingly fierce scramble of Christian souls
for the dismembered animals: she saw the innocent pasturing beasts, she
saw the act of slaughter. She had actually sweeping before her sight a
spectacle of the ludicrous-terrific, in the shape of an entire community
pursuing countless herds of poor scampering animal life for blood: she,
meanwhile, with Nevil and Dr. Shrapnel, stood apart contemning. For whoso
would not partake of flesh in this kingdom of roast beef must be of the
sparse number of Nevil's execrated minority in politics.

The example will show that she touched the borders of delirium.
Physically, the doctor pronounces her bilious. She was in earnest so far
as to send down to the library for medical books, and books upon diet.
These, however, did not plead for the beasts. They treated the subject
without question of man's taking that which he has conquered. Poets and
philosophers did the same. Again she beheld Nevil Beauchamp solitary in
the adverse rank to the world;--to his countrymen especially. But that it
was no material cause which had wasted his cheeks and lined his forehead,
she was sure: and to starve with him, to embark with him in his little
boat on the seas he whipped to frenzy, would have been a dream of bliss,
had she dared to contemplate herself in a dream as his companion.

It was not to be thought of.

No: but this was, and to be thought of seriously: Cecilia had said to
herself for consolation that Beauchamp was no spiritual guide; he had her
heart within her to plead for him, and the reflection came to her, like a
bubble up from the heart, that most of our spiritual guides neglect the
root to trim the flower: and thence, turning sharply on herself, she
obtained a sudden view of her allurement and her sin in worshipping
herself, and recognized that the aim at an ideal life closely approaches,
or easily inclines, to self-worship; to which the lady was woman and
artist enough to have had no objection, but that therein visibly she
discerned the retributive vain longings, in the guise of high individual
superiority and distinction, that had thwarted her with Nevil Beauchamp,
never permitting her to love single-mindedly or whole-heartedly, but
always in reclaiming her rights and sighing for the loss of her ideal;
adoring her own image, in fact, when she