Also on Fridays and Saturdays, and on the vigils of
feast days, and on most days in Lent, he had eaten only bread and
boiled vegetables, such as could be found, and the fasting reminded him
of the old days in Sheering Abbey.
For in his nature there was the belief of that age in something far
above common desires and passions, dwelling in a temple of the soul
that must be reached by steps of pain; there was the spirit of men who
starved and scourged their bodies almost to death that their souls
might live unspotted; and the terribly primitive conception of every
passional sin as equal in importance to murder, and only less deadly
than an infamous crime in the semi-worldly view of knightly honour,
which admitted private vengeance as a sort of necessity of human
nature.
The mere thought that he could love the Queen, or could have believed
that he loved her for one instant, seemed ten thousand times worse than
his boyish love of Beatrix had once seemed, when he had supposed that
there was no means of setting aside the bar of affinity; and it was
right that he should think so. But though temptation is not sin, he
made it that, and accused himself; for it was manifest that the merest
passing thrill of the blood, such as he had felt on that night in
Vezelay, and now again, must be an evil thing, since it had brought
about such a great result in a dangerous moment.
These were small things, and nice distinctions, that a strong man
should dwell on them and bruise his heart for its wickedness.
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