[The Farringdons by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler]@TWC D-Link bookThe Farringdons CHAPTER IX 14/38
It shies a good deal at gnats, I own; but it can run in double-harness with a camel, if worldly considerations render such a course desirable.
It is like a horse we once had, which always shied violently at every puddle, but went past a steamroller without turning a hair." "'By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue,'" quoted Christopher. "I don't want to be too severe, but Mrs.Herbert does make me so mad. When people put religious things in a horrid light, it makes you feel as if they were telling unkind and untrue tales about your dearest friends." "What does the good woman say that makes 'my lady Tongue' so furious ?" "Well, she is always saying one must give up this and give up that, and deny one's self here and deny one's self there, for the sake of religion; and I don't believe that religion means that sort of giving up at all.
Of course, God is pleased when we do what He wishes us to do, because He knows it is the best for us; but I don't believe He wants us to do things when we hate doing them, just to please Him." "Perhaps not.
Still, if one does a thing one doesn't like doing, to please another person, one often ends by enjoying the doing of the thing.
And even if one never enjoys it, the thing has still to be done." "Well, if you were awfully fond of anybody, should you want them to spend their time with you, and do what you were doing, when you knew all the time that they didn't like being with you, but were dying to be with some one else ?" "Certainly not." Christopher might not know much about theology, but he knew exactly how people felt when they were, as Elisabeth said, "awfully fond of anybody." "Of course you wouldn't," the girl went on; "you would wish the person you loved to be happy with you, and to want to be with you as much as you wanted to be with them; and if they didn't really care to be with you, you wouldn't thank them for unselfishness in the matter.
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