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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.
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Dorcas Bell wa * the youngest child of a humble family , which had gradually fallen lower and lower in the world , through the incidental calamities of frequent sickness , and occasional want of employment ; yet Dorcas was fourteen years of age ere she left her home to go into the world in the capacity of a common
set » rant . With pretensions as humble as her condition , she was riot eligible to any but a servitude of a lowly grade , and such she met in the house of a small tradesman . To many of this class , more than to any other , adheres' tlii& servile , sordid feeling which is incident to those whose position places them in the crouching attitude of dependence , ana
sttinulatks them frith the desire for accumulation . Some y ? £ rt &ft ) & % the period in which this story is laid , this class was tinctured wffh a deeper die of meanness than now—now that the lights of knowledge are being generally diffused , and the consciousness of coni ; - rnon rights , spreading even to the counter and the court , incites 'darkness visible / and counteracts the ' caterpillar principle * in both . ;
Into the family of Abel Barton , grocer and tea-dealer , Dbreas was adnrtitted . There , amid ignorance , uncouthness , and some share " of opulence , reigned the exterminating spirit of rotfe—that spirit which drives the wretched pariah beyond the pale of social communion—that spirit over which , when we see it mark thfc pagati , We mourn , but when we see it brand the Christian , we marrfcl !
Dorcas came to the house of servitude from the house of motiirrt * ing ; not long before , her father had been called away , arid the grave had just closed upon him as the world opened upon h& . She came among strangers , not merely a stranger , but a degraded stranger ; and a spirit already bowed by grief was soon bertt jrrt lower by oppression . The home which she had left had . it is true , never aflbrded her
anything but hard fare and hard work ; but there the cordial hand of equality had elasped her own , and the familiar voice of affection had spoken her name . In her master ' s house she was bHter clothed and better fed : but indifference , if not disdain , mt ? t her m every look ; cold , if ndt unkind , commend enjoined herdntfes ; regardless , if not ungrateful , apathy received her services . Witft what led were thesfe at first rendered ! How eager she iwd to
earn the- sympathy for which every * uns 6 phistfeatett cretitttife yearn *! Nay , er * n the * dtohfot and the d * fe of lucrf-Ute if e ^ Hter of hi * % * tft in which tfee Wte # 4 i * ht * l spuHt fttWmHMfet'lt
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SkETCntiB OF liOM ^ STIC LIFE . —No . IV . - •¦ - i THE DRVDGK .
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. ... * ,. ^ v . , ¦ ^
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No . 102 . 2 G
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 397, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/33/
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