Shirley

colourless tresses, she sat down – inaction would suit the frame of mind into which she was now declining – she said to herself: –
    »I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health: half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?«
    She reflected.
    »I shall not be married, it appears,« she continued. »I suppose, as Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. I considered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to the ordinary destiny, and never troubled myself to seek any other; but now, I perceive plainly, I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else, some rich lady: I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my place in the world?«
    She mused again.
    »Ah! I see,« she pursued presently, »that is the question which most old maids are puzzled to solve: other people solve it for them by saying, ›Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.‹ That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise: they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. The Romish religion especially teaches renunciation of self, submission to others, and nowhere are found so many grasping tyrants as in the ranks of the Romish priesthood. Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and welfare of all, if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these, that surge in my mind: are they right thoughts? I am not certain.
    Well, life is short at the best: seventy years, they say, pass like a vapour, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feet terminates in one bourne – the grave: the little chink in the surface of this great globe – the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round a few times more. So much for the body: the soul meantime wings its long flight upward, folds its wings on the brink of the sea of fire and glass, and gazing down through the burning clearness, finds there mirrored the vision of the Christian's triple Godhead: the Sovereign Father; the Mediating Son; the Creator Spirit. Such words, at least, have been chosen to express what is inexpressible: to describe what baffles description. The soul's real hereafter, who shall guess?«
    Her fire was decayed to its last cinder; Malone had departed; and now the study-bell rang for prayers.
    The next day Caroline had to spend altogether alone, her uncle being gone to dine with his friend Dr Boultby, vicar of Whinbury. The whole time she was talking inwardly in the same strain: looking forwards, asking what she was to do with life. Fanny, as she passed in and out of the room occasionally, intent on housemaid errands, perceived that her young mistress sat very still. She was always in the same place, always bent industriously over a piece of work: she did not lift her head to speak to Fanny, as her custom was; and when the latter remarked that the day was fine, and she ought to take a walk, she only said – »It is cold.«
    »You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline,« continued the girl, approaching her little table.
    »I am tired of it, Fanny.«
    »Then why do you go on with it? Put it down: read, or do something to amuse you.«
    »It is solitary in this house, Fanny: don't you think so?«
    »I don't find it so, Miss. Me and Eliza are company for one another; but you are quite too still – you should visit more. Now, be