Shirley ​(angol) 8 csillagozás

„Because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence. Nobody is rich enough to purchase it. Nobody has the honour, the intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder in England on which you would rest your hand for support-far less a bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of course you must live alone.”

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„Is change necessary to happiness?”
„Yes.”
„Is it synonymous with it?”
„I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same.”
Here Jessie spoke.
„Isn't she mad?” she asked.
„But, Rose,” pursued Caroline, „I fear a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading—in disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit.”
„Does 'The Italian' so end?”
„I thought so when I read it.”
„Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who buried his talent in a napkin—despicable sluggard!”

[…]
„Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me—indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or not—you have attacked me without provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a mere conjecture on your part. I never romanced to you nor to anybody you know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion to yourself. If at any time in future you evince it annoyingly, I shall answer even less scrupulously than I have done now.”

Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed many a prayer after the Christian creed; preferred it with deep earnestness; begged for patience, strength, relief. This world, however, we all know, is the scene of trial and probation; and, for any favourable result her petitions had yet
wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sinking into the gulf of religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation.
Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have felt thus forsaken; when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes
the rise of day; that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter, and the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the suffering soul recognise, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of its deliverance. Yet let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and faith in God: God will never deceive, never finally desert him. „Whom He loveth, He chasteneth.” These words are true, and should not be forgotten.

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[…] but when people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference.

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„Nobody,” she went on-"nobody in particular is to blame, that I can see, for the state in which things are: and I cannot tell, however much I puzzle over it, how they are to be altered for the better; but I feel there is something wrong somewhere. I believe single women should have more to do better chances of interesting and profitable occupation than they possess now. And when I speak thus, I have no impression that I displease God by my words: that I am either impious or impatient, irreligious or sacrilegious. My consolation is, indeed, that God hears many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears against, or frowns on with impotent contempt.

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The 'virtuous woman, again, had her household up in the very middle of the night; she got breakfast over' (as Mrs. Sykes says) before one o'clock a. m.; but she had something more to do than spin and give out portions: she was a manufacturer-she made fine linen and sold it: she was an agriculturist-she bought estates and planted vineyards. That woman was a manager:- she was what the matrons hereabouts call 'a clever woman.'
On the whole, I like her a good deal better than Lucretia; but I don't believe either Mr. Armitage or Mr. Sykes could have got the advantage of her in a bargain: yet, I like her.
'Strength and honour were her clothing: the heart of her husband safely trusted in her. She opened her mouth with wisdom; in her tongue was the law of kindness: her children rose up and called her blessed; her husband also praised her.'

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Mrs. Yorke was just the woman who, while rendering miserable the drudging life of a simple maid-servant, would nurse like a heroine an hospital full of plague patients. She almost loved Moore: her tough heart almost yearned towards him, when she found him committed to her charge- left in her arms, as dependent on her as her youngest-born in the cradle. Had she seen a domestic, or one of her daughters, give him a draught of water, or smooth his pillow, she would have boxed the intruder's ears. She chased Jessie and Rose from the upper realm of the house: she forbade the housemaids to set their foot in it.

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"'May I pass?'
"’No. I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me just now, without speaking the word I demand.'
"’What dare you expect me to say?'
""What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I must and will hear; what you dare not now suppress.'
"’Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean: you are not like yourself.'
"I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her; that I could see: it was right; she must be scared to be won.
"’You do know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you myself. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man: and, remember, he is a gentleman.'
"She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock; she might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled.

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