Still, a composed, decent, equable
deportment is a capital treasure to a woman, and that you possess. Write
again soon, for I feel rather fierce, and want stroking down."
"June 13th, 1845.
"As to the Mrs. ---, who, you say, is like me, I somehow feel no
leaning to her at all. I never do to people who are said to be like
me, because I have always a notion that they are only like me in the
disagreeable, outside, first-acquaintance part of my character; in
those points which are obvious to the ordinary run of people, and
which I know are not pleasing. You say she is 'clever'--'a clever
person.' How I dislike the term! It means rather a shrewd, very
ugly, meddling, talking woman . . . I feel reluctant to leave papa for
a single day. His sight diminishes weekly; and can it be wondered at
that, as he sees the most precious of his faculties leaving him, his
spirits sometimes sink? It is so hard to feel that his few and scanty
pleasures must all soon go. He has now the greatest difficulty in
either reading or writing; and then he dreads the state of dependence
to which blindness will inevitably reduce him. He fears that he will
be nothing in his parish. I try to cheer him; sometimes I succeed
temporarily, but no consolation can restore his sight, or atone for
the want of it.
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