I could hardly bear to see them;
but I had no heart to speak even to ask that they might be
sent away, or for anything else; and I had a sense besides
that it was a gratification to them to be near me; and to
gratify any one of the race I would have borne a good deal of
pain.
It smites my heart now, to think of those hours. The image of
them is sharp and fresh as if the time were but last night. I
lay with shut eyes, taking in as it seemed to me, additional
loads of trouble with each quarter of an hour; as I thought
and thought and put one and another thing together, of things
past and present, to help my understanding. A child will carry
on that process fast and to far-off results; give her but the
key and set her off on the track of truth with a sufficient
impetus. My happy childlike ignorance and childlike life was
in a measure gone; I had come into the world of vexed
questions, of the oppressor and the oppressed, the full and
the empty, the rich and the poor. I could make nothing at all
of Preston's arguments and reasonings.
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