第279页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第279页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as
likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My
duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some
happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect
in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate
my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on
from day to day.
Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed
in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to
deceive myself, I must reply- No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt-
yes, idiot that I am- I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step
which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I
was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of
all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself
too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong- that is a
great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I
trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks,
perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is
possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the
better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime, let me ask myself one question- Which is better?- To have
surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful
effort- no struggle;- but to have sunk down in the silken snare;
fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime,
amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in
France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my
time- for he would- oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a
while. He did love me- no one will ever love me so again. I shall
never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace-
for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was
fond and proud of me- it is what no man besides will ever be.- But
where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling?
Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at
Marseilles- fevered with delusive bliss one hour- suffocating with the
bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- or to be a
village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook
in the healthy heart of England?
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and
law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied
moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence
for the guidance!
Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to
my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet
fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a
mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains-
'The air was mild, the dew was balm.'