Her rank had already grown to seem to her so
identified with herself that she was hardly any longer capable of
the analysis that should show it distinct from her being. As to any
duty arising from her position, she had never heard the word used
except as representing something owing to, not owed by rank. Social
standing in the eyes of the super excellent few of fashion was the
Satan of unrighteousness worshipped around her. And the precepts
of this worship fell upon soil prepared for it. For with all the
simplicity of her nature, there was in it an inborn sense of rank,
of elevation in the order of the universe above most others of the
children of men--of greater intrinsic worth therefore in herself.
How could it be otherwise with the offspring of generations of pride
and falsely conscious superiority? Hence, as things were going now
with the mere human part of her, some commotion, if not earthquake
indeed, was imminent. Nay the commotion had already begun, as
manifest in her sleeplessness and the thoughts that occupied it.
Rightly to understand the sense of shame and degradation she had
not unfrequently felt of late, we must remember that in the circle
in which she moved she heard professions, arts, and trades alluded
to with the same unuttered, but the more strongly implied contempt
--a contempt indeed regarded as so much a matter of course, so
thoroughly understood, so reasonable in its nature, so absolute in
its degree, that to utter it would have been bad taste from very
superfluity.
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