This path, too, seemed to lead nowhere.

She declared that she had lost the sense of duty, and that, so far as concerned her, all the paupers and criminals in New York might henceforward rise in their majesty and manage every railway on the continent.

Why should she care?
What was the city to her?
She could find nothing in it that seemed to demand salvation.

What gave peculiar sanctity to numbers?
Why were a million people, who all resembled each other, any way more interesting than one person?
What aspiration could she help to put into the mind of this great million-armed monster that would make it worth her love or respect?
Religion?
A thousand powerful churches were doing their best, and she could see no chance for a new faith of which she was to be the inspired prophet.

Ambition?
High popular ideals?
Passion for whatever is lofty and pure?
The very words irritated her.