My home, then, when I at last find a home, —
is a cottage; a little room with whitewashed walls
and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs
and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three
plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf.
Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen,
with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small,
yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe:
though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends
has increased that, by a modest stock of such things
as are necessary.
It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee
of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a
handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth.
This morning, the village school opened. I had
twenty scholars. But three of the number can
read: none write or cipher. Several knit,
and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest
accent of the district. At present, they and
I have a difficulty in understanding each other’s
language. Some of them are unmannered, rough,
intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile,
have a wish to learn, and evince a disposition that
pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad
little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as
the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs
of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind
feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as
in those of the best-born. My duty will be to
develop these germs: surely I shall find some
happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment
I do not expect in the life opening before me:
yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and
exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live
on from day to day.
Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours
I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning
and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must
reply — No: I felt desolate to a degree.
I felt — yes, idiot that I am —
I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step
which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social
existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance,
the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw
round me. But let me not hate and despise myself
too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong
— that is a great step gained; I shall strive
to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall
get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks,
perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few
months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress,
and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute
gratification for disgust.
