- In short, I could not meet Leslie the next morning
without trepidation. He had made the disclosure.
"And how did she bear it?"
"Like an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her mind, for she
threw her arms round my neck, and asked if this was all that had
lately made me unhappy.- But, poor girl," added he, "she cannot
realize the change we must undergo. She has no idea of poverty but
in the abstract; she has only read of it in poetry, where it is allied
to love. She feels as yet no privation; she suffers no loss of
accustomed conveniences nor elegancies. When we come practically to
experience its sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty humiliations-
then will be the real trial."
"But," said I, "now that you have got over the severest task, that
of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world into the secret
the better. The disclosure may be mortifying; but then it is a
single misery, and soon over: whereas you otherwise suffer it, in
anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not poverty so much as
pretence, that harasses a ruined man- the struggle between a proud
mind and an empty purse- the keeping up a hollow show that must soon
come to an end. Have the courage to appear poor and you disarm poverty
of its sharpest sting.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12