On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Untitled Article
it * addition to her other injudicious habits , and the effects of their combined influence grew gradually apparent in her declining , or , as she liked to call it , her delicate health . 44 Thoughts shut up want air , And spoil like bales unopened to the sun . "
And nothing spoils without spoiling something else , especially that with which it lies in contact . Had Selina possessed a healthy instead of an unhealthy sensibility ; cultivated real instead of a sickly sentiment ; she would , nevertheless , under her circumstances , have suffered pain , but it would have been partial , and it would have quickened her sagacity to discover a shield for herself , and a cure for the faults by which she was" offended ; while affection would have induced forbearance , and forbidden selfishness .
' Selina ' s silent contempt effected a sort of moral distillation , converting all her feelings and impressions into poison , the corrosive action of which working on her mind , affected her temper and her frame , and she became a melancholy invalid . ' The concern and anxiety of her parents increased , and they made new efforts to induce her to change her habits , to which they justly attributed some share of her malady . But she , who loved to read and talk of the yielding nature of the female
character , was unconquerably obstinate . It was in vain that she was urged to take walking exercise ; she could not do it , though she could occasionally dance all night in the heated room of a subscription ball , or at a dancing master ' s academy . She was too delicate to walk ; besides , it was so unladylike ; the sight of the least mud shocked her ; the people in the street were rude or
rapid ; the carts and other carriages noisy ; the dust and dirt insufferable . It was impossible to deny the existence of all the annoyances which she enumerated ; the wonder seemed to be how other people supported or said so little about them . Selina solved the difficulty—they had no sensibility . Occasionall y she would condescend to avail herself of the convenience of a
hackney coach , but never without expressions of disgust at the vehicle , and lamentation that she had not a carriage of her own . On the sabbath her father usually hired a conveyance for the day , to carry himself and spouse a little jaunt into the country . Selinu would never join them in these excursions , because all the vulgar and working world were abroad on that day . Hence away went Mr . and Mrs . Bullock of a Sunday ; Selina si g hed , staid at home , and sat looking through or over the Venetian blinds .
Everything in and atjput the house was active and cheerful but herself ; two women servants were kept , who were ever unconsciously reading her lessons of wisdom ; for Sally would sing as she twirled , her rnopj and Betty would bandy jests with the baker and the brewer /
Untitled Article
-448 Sketches of Domestic Life .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1835, page 448, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2647/page/12/
-