He was very well off now, but how differently from what he had anticipated, he had acquired his present position.
He thought of his mental sufferings, the acute brain, the deep-seated ambition torturing him.
He no longer asked himself why he had endured pain. Had he never suffered, he would never have attained the moral position in which he now was. It was when he was disgusted with the world, when he experienced an aversion for earthly things, that his firmest resolves had been formed and his determination to do good solidified. It was then that he attempted to rise above the dusty, monotonous and weary walks of ordinary life; it was then that his virtuous sensibility had been awakened, and that his lofty conceptions had been framed. And now, having aimed at something noble, he was leading a useful, happy, and dignified life.
He was cheerful, and possessed of some of that supreme happiness which brightens the soul, and accompanies it through immortality.
He had said: "Why endure pain?" But it was with the same senses that he now enjoyed pleasure.
He had said: "Why suffer physically?" "Why," he thought, "if that little child did not feel, and had not experienced the pangs of hunger, it would now be dead; so would I, if, when I was wrapped in thick smoke, the foul gases had not irritated my bronchial tubes and my eyes.
"As for the remainder, I am satisfied to leave it to Him who has cared for and protected me so far through life. Perhaps the day will come when I shall also know the why and wherefore of things which I almost dared to accuse an all-wise Providence of having sent into the world."
While her husband was soliloquizing thus, Mrs. Mathers was busily engaged in stitching a smart little pinafore of diaper.
Grandpapa was resting upon the sofa with little Adèle seated on his knee.