Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Charlotte Brontë

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 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 will remain,—the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came, it will return, perhaps to pass through gradations of glory,—from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph…. It is a creed in which I delight, to which I cling. It makes eternity a rest, a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, 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.

Some real lives do—for certain days or years—actually anticipate the happiness of heaven; and I believe if such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it never comes) its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish and tinging the deep cloud. I will go further: I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their journey. And often these are not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature’s elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God’s kind attributes…. But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done! as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not.