Arminell: A Social Romance, Vol. 3Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Arminell: A Social Romance, Vol. 3
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
English fiction -- 19th century
As she overlooked the superficial flaws in Mr. and Mrs. Welsh because
she recognised their substantial goodness, so did she begin now to
perceive what had before been unnoticed in the characters of her father
and step-mother. She had had eyes previously only for their foibles and
infirmities, now she saw how full of sterling qualities both had been,
of punctual fulfilment of duties, of conscientious discharge of the
obligations imposed on them by their position and wealth, of hearty
good-will for all with whom they were brought in contact. She had
disregarded her little half-brother, the present Baron Lamerton, because
he was only a child with childish thoughts, childish pursuits, and
childish prattle; and now she saw that his was a very tender, loving
spirit, which it would have been worth her while to cultivate. In the
first moment of disappointment, humiliation and anger, she had been
incensed against Jingles for having assisted her in perpetrating her
great mistake. She saw what a fool he had been, how conceited, how
ungrateful, but even over this forbidding soil the divining rod turned,
and revealed a vein of noble metal. If it had not been there, he would
not have accepted his humiliation with frankness and have shown so
decided a moral rebound.
When one who has the dowsing faculty is in the society of those who lack
it, and listens to their talk, their disparagement of others, the
captiousness with which they pick at trivial blemishes, sneer at
infirmities, blame short-comings, that person listens with a sort of
wonder at the blindness of the talkers, at their lack of perception,
because their eyes never penetrate below the surface, and a sort of pity
that they have never turned it inwards and searched themselves, not for
silver but for dross.
The knight Huldbrand, when riding through the Enchanted Wood, had his
eyes opened, and beneath the turf and the roots of the trees, he looked
through, as it were, a sheet of green glass, and saw the gold and silver
veins in the earth, and the spirits that worked at, and directed their
courses, opening sluices here and stopping currents there. So it is with
those invested with the dowsing gift—with them in the Enchanted Wood of
Life.
In the twilight room Arminell listened to Mr. Welsh’s story of the
funeral of her father, with tears running down her cheeks, regardless of
the manner in which the story was told, in the intensity of her interest
in the matter, and conscious of the intention of the narrator.
The death of Lord Lamerton had indeed evoked an amount of feeling and
regret that showed how deeply-rooted was the estimation in which his
good qualities were held, and how unreal was the agitation that had been
provoked against him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account