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THE, PORTRAIT. 391
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
?- ¦ Chapter Ix.
_oards " you " must and not I tried liear to all smile my . secrets Cleveland : when made I marry no answer I shall ., " send Whether you
lie reall , y believed or still doubted , I could not tell ; anyhow , I had acted in accordance with the dictates of conscience . My impulse
ray was to rush out of the room the instant I had finished speaking- ; but I mastered the wishand began to talk of the state of art in
Italy . The answers of Cleveland , were given as if by one in a dream . _Nevertheless I persevered , for silence was intolerable . Cleveland
at last roused himself , offered a thousand apologies for intruding on meinquired when Mrs . Martyn was expected home—and then
abruptl , y took leave . A week after these events Mrs . Martyn came back to Russell Sand I left to pay my annual visit to my
aunt Mrs . Richards quare : I , did not wish to meet either Cleveland or his wifeThere was no necessity for such a meeting"therefore I
. , tinual avoide martyrdom d it . I never , as some thoug self ht that -sacrificing I had mortals a special appear vocation to consider for
conthemselves called upon to believe ; oil the contrary , I ever feel a readiness to shun suffering rather than to invite it , and only in
cases where I deemed it absolutely imperative -was I willing to t trials . The arent self-sacrificers are usually those whose
pathway ob accep structed . in by life brambles is app velvet and smooth thorns , , wliose and who onward never b march y any chance is not
wound hands or feet in a struggle for common life , for daily wants- — well-gloved and well-shod pedestrians , who attach no meaning to
the words , hunger , thirst or nakedness , are those who harangue most about the trials they endure , the afflictions that beset them ;
while the foot-weary and heart-worn—the wounded and the griefladen , have no time to spare for idle lamentation , no hours to lose in
_$ he luxury of complaining . Slaves , whose taskmaster is Necessity , never prate of self-denial . What they do they must doand think
the while that their suffering . s need no addition of their own , inflicting . , Like them , I conceived the world hard enough ; I had met
with thorns and was wounded ; and instead of courting further inheart murmured against what it had already endured .
pa " How ,, my chanced it that I had been made to suffer in order that Mrs . Bethune might obtain her wishes ? " was the rebellious
whisper . " She , the pampered child of fortune now as before , I the loneloneworking for my bread . "
" Poetical y . justice is a dream . Happy endings are only in novels , seldom in real life "—answered another whispering voice : " besides
, , to obtain our blind wishes , is often to clutch misery as a companion . Murmur not , lest a worse thing happen to you . " I tossed my
aching head upon my pillow and nitir mured on . _•& _*\* # * _* 4 * I must now ask the reader to take a leap over an interval of
years _; years during * which I had become reasonable and ceased to repine at those mists and clouds which had overshadowed my
earlier life ; years in which I worked hard , and learned lessons of
The, Portrait. 391
THE , PORTRAIT . 391
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1861, page 391, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081861/page/31/
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