Nevertheless Mrs. Lee did her best to turn
her study to practical use. She plunged into philanthropy, visited
prisons, inspected hospitals, read the literature of pauperism and
crime, saturated herself with the statistics of vice, until her mind
had nearly lost sight of virtue. At last it rose in rebellion against
her, and she came to the limit of her strength. This path, too,
seemed to lead nowhere. She declared that she had lost the sense
of duty, and that, so far as concerned her, all the paupers and
criminals in New York might henceforward rise in their majesty
and manage every railway on the continent. Why should she care?
What was the city to her? She could find nothing in it that seemed
to demand salvation. What gave peculiar sanctity to numbers?
Why were a million people, who all resembled each other, any way
more interesting than one person? What aspiration could she help
to put into the mind of this great million-armed monster that
would make it worth her love or respect? Religion? A thousand
powerful churches were doing their best, and she could see no
chance for a new faith of which she was to be the inspired prophet.
Ambition? High popular ideals? Passion for whatever is lofty and
pure? The very words irritated her. Was she not herself devoured
by ambition, and was she not now eating her heart out because she
could find no one object worth a sacrifice?
Was it ambition--real ambition--or was it mere restlessness that
made Mrs.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25