{"id":"01KG8AMYF0G9R8ACTJ3EBX6RQ8","cid":"bafkreiat3qxalpjtxwm5pqmgiownzuha7vq5hiickmbrxfypki5j47dqxu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":692,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":637,"text":"vicarious reception of them. She was vividly aware how immense was that\r\ninfluence, which, even in the closest ties of the heart, the merest\r\nappearances make upon the mind. And as in the admiring love and\r\ngraceful devotion of Pierre lay now her highest joy in life; so she\r\nomitted no slightest trifle which could possibly contribute to the\r\npreservation of so sweet and flattering a thing.\r\n\r\nBesides all this, Mary Glendinning was a woman, and with more than the\r\nordinary vanity of women--if vanity it can be called--which in a life of\r\nnearly fifty years had never betrayed her into a single published\r\nimpropriety, or caused her one known pang at the heart. Moreover, she\r\nhad never yearned for admiration; because that was her birthright by the\r\neternal privilege of beauty; she had always possessed it; she had not to\r\nturn her head for it, since spontaneously it always encompassed her.\r\nVanity, which in so many women approaches to a spiritual vice, and\r\ntherefore to a visible blemish; in her peculiar case--and though\r\npossessed in a transcendent degree--was still the token of the highest\r\nhealth; inasmuch as never knowing what it was to yearn for its\r\ngratification, she was almost entirely unconscious of possessing it at\r\nall. Many women carry this light of their lives flaming on their\r\nforeheads; but Mary Glendinning unknowingly bore hers within. Through\r\nall the infinite traceries of feminine art, she evenly glowed like a\r\nvase which, internally illuminated, gives no outward sign of the\r\nlighting flame, but seems to shine by the very virtue of the exquisite\r\nmarble itself. But that bluff corporeal admiration, with which some\r\nball-room women are content, was no admiration to the mother of Pierre.\r\nNot the general homage of men, but the selected homage of the noblest\r\nmen, was what she felt to be her appropriate right. And as her own\r\nmaternal partialities were added to, and glorified the rare and absolute\r\nmerits of Pierre; she considered the voluntary allegiance of his\r\naffectionate soul, the representative fealty of the choicest guild of\r\nhis race. Thus, though replenished through all her veins with the\r\nsubtlest vanity, with the homage of Pierre alone she was content.\r\n\r\nBut as to a woman of sense and spirit, the admiration of even the\r\nnoblest and most gifted man, is esteemed as nothing, so long as she\r\nremains conscious of possessing no directly influencing and practical\r\nsorcery over his soul; and as notwithstanding all his intellectual\r\nsuperiority to his mother, Pierre, through the unavoidable weakness of\r\ninexperienced and unexpanded youth, was strangely docile to the maternal\r\ntuitions in nearly all the things which thus far had any ways interested\r\nor affected him; therefore it was, that to Mary Glendinning this\r\nreverence of Pierre was invested with all the proudest delights and\r\nwitcheries of self-complacency, which it is possible for the most\r\nconquering virgin to feel. Still more. That nameless and infinitely\r\ndelicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in\r\nevery refined and honorable attachment, is cotemporary with the\r\ncourtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like\r\nthe _bouquet_ of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon\r\npouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the\r\nmatrimonial days and nights; this highest and airiest thing in the whole\r\ncompass of the experience of our mortal life; this heavenly\r\nevanescence--still further etherealized in the filial breast--was for\r\nMary Glendinning, now not very far from her grand climacteric,\r\nmiraculously revived in the courteous lover-like adoration of Pierre.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKK0WB11AHE3J76EM1X03","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXWRA5TKS0DSTPPAA93C","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMYF0FVVWQ3P3M7G80BWJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.728Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:01.180Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}