Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then
make a remark, but she said nothing.
"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad
woman?"
"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she
dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but
how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What
a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made
on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings.
Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity,
together with the passionate emotions it excited? 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 soon 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 of the spirit will remain, -- the impalpable principle
of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire
the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to
be communicated to some being higher than man -- perhaps to pass
through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten
to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered
to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I
hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom
mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it
extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest -- a mighty home, not
a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly
distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely
forgive the first while I abhor the last: 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."
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