"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 human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the
contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot
believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and
which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for
it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a mighty home, not a
terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly
distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely
forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never
worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice
never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end."
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Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this
sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but
rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time
for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up,
exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent--
"Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up
your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"
Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor
without reply as without delay.
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