Monday 12 January 2009

Hating my house

"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished."  The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.  "Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction.  I was no Helen Burns.  "Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.  "Place the child upon it."  And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.  Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.  "Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"  Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.  "You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character.  Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her?  Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."  A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.  "My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien.  You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse.  Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"

2 comments:

  1. I have a similar issue with our house, although it has to be said it hardly bothers me when I am happy, but when I am low I want to scream at how dirty it is. Trouble is, when I am low the last thing I feel like doing is cleaning, so it just gets worse. Hope studying is going ok.

    Lola x

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  2. Thanks, studying isn't going too bad. Three exams down and only one to go. Roll on Saturday!
    And yes when I'm low I don't want to clean and especially not when I have revision to do. Someone egged our house, I really don't find it funny!

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