“If always you had thought thus, a great deal of sorrow we had both been spared.”
“Well, then, a girl cannot get her share of wisdom, till she comes to it. After all, I am now sorry I have quarrelled with Cornelia. In New York and Philadelphia she will be a great woman.”
“To take offence is a great folly, and to give offence is a great folly—I know not which is the greater, Arenta.”
“Oh, indeed, father,” she answered, “if I am hurt and angry, I shall take the liberty to say so. Anger that is hidden cannot be gratified; and if people use me badly, it is my way to tell them I am aware of it. One may be obliged to eat brown bread, but I, for one, will say it is brown bread, and not white.”
“Your own way you will take, until into some great trouble you stumble.”
“And then my own way I shall take, until out of it I stumble.”
“I have told Rem what he must do. Like a man he must say, ‘I did wrong, and I am sorry for it,’ and so well I think of those he has wronged, as to be sure they will answer, ‘It is forgiven.’”
“And forgotten.”
“That is different. To forgive freely, is what we owe to our enemy; to forget not, is what we owe to ourselves.”
“But if Rem’s fault is forgiven, and not forgotten, what good will it do him? I have seen that every one forgives much in themselves that they find unpardonable in other people.”