Explore "Lucretia, Volume IV" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"And what," said Varney, -- "what, while we are pursuing a fancied clew, and seeking to provide first a name, and then a fortune for this young lawyer, -- what steps have you really taken to meet the danger that menaces me, -- to secure, if our inquiries fail, an independence for yourself? Months have elapsed, and you have still shrunk from advancing the great scheme upon which we built, when the daughter of Susan Mainwaring was admitted to your hearth."
"Why recall me, in these rare moments when I feel myself human still, -- why recall me back to the nethermost abyss of revenge and crime? Oh, let me be sure that I have still a son! Even if John Ardworth, with his gifts and energies, be denied to me, a son, though in rags, I will give him wealth! -- a son, though ignorant as the merest boor, I will pour into his brain my dark wisdom! A son! a son! my heart swells at the word. Ah, you sneer! Yes, my heart swells, but not with the mawkish fondness of a feeble mother. In a son, I shall live again, -- transmigrate from this tortured and horrible life of mine; drink back my youth. In him I shall rise from my fall, -- strong in his power, great in his grandeur. It is because I was born a woman, -- had woman's poor passions and infirm weakness, -- that I am what I am. I would transfer myself into the soul of man, -- man, who has the strength to act, and the privilege to rise.