Downe Wright
declared she was thankful she had shown the cloven foot in time, for
that she never would have done for a wife to her William. Now you are
the very thing to suit, for you have no cloven feet to show."
"Or at least you are not so quick-sighted as Mrs. Downe Wright. You
have not spied them yet, it seems," said Mary, with a smile.
"Oh, as to that, if you had them, I should defy you, or anyone, to hide
them from me. When I reflect upon the characters of most of my
acquaintances, I sometimes think nature has formed my optics only to see
disagreeables."
"That must be a still more painful faculty of vision than even the
second-sight," said Mary; "but I should think it depended very much upon
yourself to counteract it."
"Impossible! my perceptions are so peculiarly alive to all that is
obnoxious to them that I could as soon preach my eyes into blindness, or
my ears into deafness, as put down my feelings with chopping logic. If
people _will_ be affected and ridiculous, why must I live in a state of
warfare with myself on account of the feelings they rouse within me?"
"If people _will_ be irritable," said Mary, laughing, "why must others
sacrifice their feelings to gratify them?"
"Because mine are natural feelings, and theirs are artificial. A very
saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you'll allow. Vulgarity, even
innate vulgarity, is bearable--stupidity itself is pardonable--but
affectation is never to be endured or forgiven.
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