Suicide is often the product of passion as well
as of despair; the irritable, headlong protest against evils that
might have been and should have been remedied.
As Ida sat alone in her desolation and shame, the thought
of self-destruction had surged up in the lava of other tumultuous
thoughts occasioned by the artist's scorn, and at first she had
shrunk from it with natural and instinctive dread. But the awful
thought began to fascinate her like a dizzy height from which it
seems so easy to fall and end everything.
In her morbid condition and to her poisoned imagination the act
did not appear so revolting after all. She had been made familiar
with it in her favorite novels. She had often seen it simulated
with applause on the stage, with all the melodramatic accessories
with which it is produce mere effect. Indeed, from her education,
she might also think self-destruction was the only dignified and
high-spirited thing to do.
For a time her thoughts took the coloring of high tragedy. She
would teach this proud artist a lessen, even though at supreme cost
to herself. If he would never love her, she would make it certain
that he could not longer despise her.
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