第41页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第41页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
'A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all
I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to
those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all
their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never
alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a
reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should- so
hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.'
'You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you
are but a little untaught girl.'
'But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to
please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish
me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show
me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.'
'Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians
and civilised nations disown it.'
'How? I don't understand.'
'It is not violence that best overcomes hate- nor vengeance that
most certainly heals injury.'
'What then?'
'Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He
acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.'
'What does He say?'
'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that
hate you and despitefully use you.'
'Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless
her son John, which is impossible.'
In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded
forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and
resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt,
without reserve or softening.
Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make
a remark, but she said nothing.
'Well,' I asked impatiently, 'is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted,
bad woman?'
'She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she
dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but
how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a
singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your
heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not
be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the
passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be
spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be,
one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will
soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our
corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with
this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will
remain,- the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when
it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will
return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than
man- perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale