[Adam Bede by George Eliot]@TWC D-Link bookAdam Bede CHAPTER III 12/12
Still--if I have read religious history aright--faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible--thank Heaven!--to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings.
The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to her neighbour's child to "stop the fits," may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost. Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions. Poor Seth! He was never on horseback in his life except once, when he was a little lad, and Mr.Jonathan Burge took him up behind, telling him to "hold on tight"; and instead of bursting out into wild accusing apostrophes to God and destiny, he is resolving, as he now walks homewards under the solemn starlight, to repress his sadness, to be less bent on having his own will, and to live more for others, as Dinah does..
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|