“He does not,” exclaimed Anna: “he thinks of every body sooner than himself.”
“He does, my dear, to all appearance—to admiration; but I believe he has very severe struggles to undergo when no human eye sees, and none are near to feel with and for him. I will not say that he reproaches himself for this, but he is anxious to bear in mind that others suffer more than himself. ‘I am not sleepless,’ he says, ‘from hunger and pain, like this man. I can see the sun shine and be consoled. I am soothed by friendly words and kind deeds, and my poverty is not real, but only future, since I have clothes and food; but this man tosses on his straw bed through the night, and groans in anguish through the day. He has no bread nor clothes, nor is any one near to give. His son too is wasting before his eyes; and they have nothing but their faith to make them dare look forward one single day. I must think of them when I am sad.’ Elvi is right.”
“Certainly, papa,” said Mary; “but still I think we cannot judge of a person’s griefs by what their condition seems to be. Do not you think some people may feel exile and disappointment more than other people feel sickness and want?”
“I do, my dear. The degree of suffering depends more on the state of the person’s mind than on his outward circumstances: a very refined and amiable person may suffer more from the disappointment of his affections and the ruin of his country, than a very stupid and ignorant person from actual want. All these evils are equally real; but there are these differences—that we can understand and estimate the one kind better than the other; and we can always relieve the one, and scarcely ever the other: and of course, our first concern is with that which we can measure and relieve.”
“That is, we should think more of this poor man, and of what we can do for him, than of Signor Elvi, this afternoon. So we will.”
“Happily there is no occasion to feel less for Elvi because we can do more for his poor countryman,” said her father: “if we are but careful to do what we can and what we ought, we may make ourselves sure that our feelings will be right. We are to take care of our actions, and to leave our feelings to take care of themselves.”
This doctrine did not quite suit Anna’s taste. She made no objection to it in theory; but when she had made sure of the image-man being taken care of by other people, she lapsed into her reveries about patriotism and friendship; or rather about one patriot and one friend.
CHAPTER VII.
London.
Instead of a few months, it was full two years before Mr. Byerley and his daughters set out on their promised journey to the continent. Mr. Fletcher’s plans had been changed from time to time, so as to delay the arrival of his family at Tours; and Mr. Byerley was too fond of his home to be persuaded to leave it till the last minute, though every body saw how necessary some change of plan with respect to his daughters was becoming. To this he was not himself totally blind, though he was scarcely sufficiently aware of the danger in which Anna stood of losing all energy of character, all vigour of body as well as of mind, through an unbounded indulgence of the imagination. Mary was generally thought very romantic; but the few, the very few, who knew her well, never applied the term to her. No weak, no romantic person was ever capable of the silent, perpetual self-denial which Mary practised. No romantic person was ever so entirely devoted as Mary to the welfare of every body about her. It is true she did not make much use of the common rules of common people for judging of herself, still less of others: perhaps she overlooked these inferior rules too much. She thought and she felt on a large scale; and when she had laid hold of a good principle, she made it serve small as well as great occasions, in a way that little minds would have found it difficult to comprehend. Nobody doubted that on great occasions Mary would act nobly; but they supposed her unfit for the purposes of common life: they supposed her
“too bright and good