Hence Latimer's obsession with Bertha. Latimer becomes a virgin in her mist, for he is vulnerable because he does not know what reigns in her thoughts. In this sense Latimer is the veiled virgin at Bertha's mercy. Latimer describes this power of Bertha over him as such: "there is no tyranny more complete than that which a self-centered negative nature exercises over a morbidly sensitive nature perpetually craving sympathy and support" (Eliot 15). Thus secrecy pervades the consciousness of Latimer for fear of his own "veil" being lifted. Latimer says that he "never allowed my diseased condition to betray itself except once" (Eliot 18). Astonishingly enough this one slip was with his brother whom he felt complete power over. Yet when Latimer slipped he became a virgin trying to protect his own sacred chastity or secret. Latimer describes that when this happened that .
"the words had no sooner escaped my lips than I felt a shock of alarm lest .
such an anticipation of words-very far from being words of course, easy to .
divine-should have betrayed me as an exceptional being, a sort of quiet.
energumen, whom every one, Bertha above all, would shudder at and .
avoid" (Eliot 18).
Eliot further illustrates Latimer's veil of secrecy and fear of vulnerability of being exposed when Latimer describes his condition as a "suspicion which of all things I dreaded" (27). .
Latimer characterizes his relationship with the vulnerability that he sees in everyone else with his own secrecy. Latimer theorizes that .
"breaking in on the privacy of another soul, made me, by an irrational .
instinct, draw the shroud of concealment more closely around my own,.
as we automatically perform the gesture we feel to be wanting in another".
(Eliot 38).
Latimer now sees the importance of secrecy in one's deepest thoughts. Thus when this veil of secrecy is lifted one is left at the mercy of others. For this, Latimer feels a deep sense of guilt.