第82页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第82页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps
not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle,
and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of
attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons
who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children,
and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for
them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter
parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling
the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and
progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I
cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and
a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had
for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and
then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to
the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele
played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom,
I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and
having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and
hill, and along dim sky-line- that then I longed for a power of vision
which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world,
towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen- that then I
desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of
intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character,
than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax,
and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other
and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to
behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called
discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my
nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to
walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards,
safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's
eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it- and,
certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by
the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded
it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that
was never ended- a tale my imagination created, and narrated
continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling,
that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they
cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine,
and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows