Status Updates From North and South

I am afraid I have thought and wished too much—in that absorbing wilful way which is sure to be disappointed-or else gratified,to the letter,while in the spirit it gives no pleasure.
'But that's superstitious,Margaret.'
No,I don't think it is.Only it ought to warn me,and check me from giving way to such passionate wishes.I'm afraid my cry is,”Let me go to Cadiz,or else I die”.

After all it is right,hearing the voices of children at play while she was dressing.If the world stood still,it would retrograde and become corrupt.Looking out of myself,and my own painful sense of change,the progress all around me is right and necessary.I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself,but how they affect others,if I wish to have a right judgment,or a hopeful trustful heart.

I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony. If I were a Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become a nun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for love for my species could never fil my heart to the utter exclusion of love for individuals.

'I begin to understand now what heaven must be—and, oh! the grandeur and repose of the words—"The same yesterday, today, and for ever." Everlasting! "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." That sky above me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will. I am so tired—so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place;

‘What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong. But we will not talk of that any more, if you please. It is done—my sin is sinned. I have now to put it behind me, and be truthful for evermore, if I can.'

Did you ever tell him the strong, instinctive motive?
'The instinctive want of faith, and clutching at a sin to keep myself from sinking,' said she bitterly.No!How could I? To put myself to rights in his good opinion, was I to tell him of the secrets of our family?Fred's last words had been to enjoin me to keep his visit a secret from all. I could bear the shame—I thought I could at least. I did bear it.