Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 13
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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 13
Literature -- Collections
"I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do anything for
you, I think; you're like the birds o' th' air, and live nobody knows
how. I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a mother's sister, if
you'd come and live i' this country, where there's some shelter and
victual for man and beast, and folks don't live on the naked hills,
like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get
married to some decent man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you,
if you'd only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than
anything your Aunt Judith ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede,
as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a
penny beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very
like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all
they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you,
I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own
niece. And there's linen in the house as I could well spare you, for
I've got lots o' sheeting, and table-clothing, and toweling, as isn't
made up. There's a piece o' sheeting I could give you as that
squinting Kitty spun--she was a rare girl to spin, for all she
squinted and the children couldn't abide her; and you know the
spinning's going on constant, and there's new linen wove twice as fast
as the old wears out. But where's the use o' talking, if ye wonna be
persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her senses, i'stead
o' wearing yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away
every penny you get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and
all the things you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into
a bundle no bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you've got
notions i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism
and the Prayer-book."
"But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt," said Dinah.
"Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter," Mrs. Poyser rejoined rather
sharply; "else why shouldn't them as know best what's in the
Bible--the parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn
it--do the same as you do? But for the matter o' that, if everybody
was to do like you, the world must come to a standstill; for if
everybody tried to do without house and home, and with poor eating and
drinking, and was allays talking as we must despise the things o' the
world, as you say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock,
and the corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go. Everybody
'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends, and everybody 'ud be running
after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bringing up their
families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as
that can't be the right religion."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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