She could not preach to
any one--wrestle with any one. And ought one to make out of others' woes
plasters for one's own? To use the poor as the means of a spiritual
"cure" seemed a dubious indecent thing; more than a touch in it of
arrogance--or sacrilege.
* * * * *
Meanwhile she had been fighting her fight in the old ways. She had been
falling back on her education, appealing to books and thought, reminding
herself of what the life of the mind had been to her father in his
misery, and of those means of cultivating it to which he would certainly
have commended her. She was trying to learn a new foreign language, and,
under Marion Vincent's urging, the table in the little sitting-room was
piled with books on social and industrial matters, which she diligently
read and pondered.
It was all struggle and effort. But it had brought her some reward. And
especially through Marion Vincent's letters, and through the long day
with Marion in London, which she had now to look back upon. For Miss
Vincent and Frobisher had returned, and Marion was once more in her
Stepney rooms. She was apparently not much worse; would allow no talk
about herself; and though she had quietly relinquished all her old
activities, her room was still the centre it had long been for the
London thinker and reformer.
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