Mother and Son

'I have found that holy place of rest
Still changeless.'
MRS. HEMANS.

When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost
blinded by his baffled passion. He was as dizzy as if Margaret,
instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender
graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a
sound blow with her fists. He had positive bodily pain,--a
violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse. He could
not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and
movement of the street.

He called himself a fool for suffering
so; and yet he could not, at the moment, recollect the cause of
his suffering, and whether it was adequate to the consequences it
had produced. It would have been a relief to him, if he could
have sat down and cried on a door-step by a little child, who was
raging and storming, through his passionate tears, at some injury
he had received. He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but
a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous
feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of
hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in
feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might
despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign
indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him
change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this
miserable bodily pain.