Her mind was uncultivated, and art, science, literature
offered her as yet no resources, no pursuits. She had a woman's
heart that might have been filled with sustaining love, but in its
place had come a sudden and icy flood of disappointment and despair.
She loved, with all the passion and simplicity of a narrow, yet
earnest nature, the man who had awakened the woman within her,
and he, she believed, would never give her aught in return, save
contempt. She naturally thought that she had been degraded in his
estimation beyond all ordinary means of redemption; therefore, in
her desperation and despair, she was ready to take an extraordinary
method of compelling at least his respect.
Moreover, Ida was impatient and impetuous by nature. She had a
large capacity for action, but little for endurance. It would be
almost impossible for her to reach woman's loftiest heroism, and
sit "like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief." It would be
her disposition rather to rush forward, and dash herself against an
adverse fate, meeting it even more than half way. All the influences
of her life had tended to develop imperiousness, willfulness, and
now her impulse was to enter a protest against her hard lot that
was as passionate and reckless as it was impotent.
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