Silas Marner George Eliot (christmas read aloud .TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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Perhaps it was this very severity towards any indulgence of what she held to be sinful regret in herself, that made her shrink from applying her own standard to her husband. âIt is very differentâ âit is much worse for a man to be disappointed in that way: a woman can always be satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but a man wants something that will make him look forward moreâ âand sitting by the fire is so much duller to him than to a woman.â And always, when Nancy reached this point in her meditationsâ âtrying, with predetermined sympathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw itâ âthere came a renewal of self-questioning. Had she done everything in her power to lighten Godfreyâs privation? Had she really been right in the resistance which had cost her so much pain six years ago, and again four years agoâ âthe resistance to her husbandâs wish that they should adopt a child? Adoption was more remote from the ideas and habits of that time than of our own; still Nancy had her opinion on it. It was as necessary to her mind to have an opinion on all topics, not exclusively masculine, that had come under her notice, as for her to have a precisely marked place for every article of her personal property: and her opinions were always principles to be unwaveringly acted on. They were firm, not because of their basis, but because she held them with a tenacity inseparable from her mental action. On all the duties and proprieties of life, from filial behaviour to the arrangements of the evening toilette, pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was three-and-twenty, had her unalterable little code, and had formed every one of her habits in strict accordance with that code. She carried these decided judgments within her in the most unobtrusive way: they rooted themselves in her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago, we know, she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, because âit was right for sisters to dress alike,â and because âshe would do what was right if she wore a gown dyed with cheese-colouring.â That was a trivial but typical instance of the mode in which Nancyâs life was regulated.
It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty egoistic feeling, which had been the ground of Nancyâs difficult resistance to her husbandâs wish. To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and would be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better without. When you saw a thing was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a bounden duty to leave off so much as wishing for it. And so far, perhaps, the wisest of men could scarcely make more than a verbal improvement in her principle. But the conditions under which she held it apparent that a thing was not meant to be, depended on a more peculiar mode of thinking. She would have given up making a purchase at a particular place if, on three successive times, rain, or some other cause of Heavenâs sending, had formed an obstacle; and she would have anticipated a broken limb or other heavy misfortune to anyone who persisted in spite of such indications.
âBut why should you think the child would turn out ill?â said Godfrey, in his remonstrances. âShe has thriven as well as child can do with the weaver; and he adopted her. There isnât such a pretty little girl anywhere else in the parish, or one fitter for the station we could give her. Where can be the likelihood of her being a curse to anybody?â
âYes, my dear Godfrey,â said Nancy, who was sitting with her hands tightly clasped together, and with yearning, regretful affection in her eyes. âThe child may not turn out ill with the weaver. But, then, he didnât go to seek her, as we should be doing. It will be wrong: I feel sure it will. Donât you remember what that lady we met at the Royston Baths told us about the child her sister adopted? That was the only adopting I ever heard of: and the child was transported when it was twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, donât ask me to do what I know is wrong: I should never be happy again. I know itâs very hard for youâ âitâs easier for meâ âbut itâs the will of Providence.â
It might seem singular that Nancyâ âwith her religious theory pieced together out of narrow social traditions, fragments of church doctrine imperfectly understood, and girlish reasonings on her small experienceâ âshould have arrived by herself at a way of thinking so nearly akin to that of many devout people, whose beliefs are held in the shape of a system quite remote from her knowledgeâ âsingular, if we did not know that human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system.
Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie, then about twelve years old, as a child suitable for them to adopt. It had never occurred to him that Silas would rather part with his life than with Eppie. Surely the weaver would wish the best to the child he had taken so
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