FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   >>  
ies. Certainly her life appeared to flow on smoothly enough, but in fact it did not flow at all--that which was really the life current; it was checked, stemmed, thrown back upon itself in a tempestuous flood. Heart, mind, spirit, all had come up against an obstacle which there was no surmounting, no eluding--the indestructible obstacle of a mistaken marriage. Those were the bitterest days of Sheila's existence--the days when all the vital, matured forces of her throbbed and surged and clamored, prisoned things that beat in vain against the walls of circumstances. Worn out at last by this inner rebellion and conflict, she began to question whether she might not write once more. What she felt for Peter must forever be suppressed; must, if possible, be crushed out altogether; for her heart, importunate though it was with her woman's maturity, there could be no satisfying outlet. And in her conscientious recognition of this, in her resolution to abide by it, her very genuine affection for Ted--despite all the differences of temperament that divided them, despite even her realization and resentment of the wrong his selfishness had done her--was her greatest source of strength. But though she thus armed herself with her affection for her husband, though she so strove for utter loyalty to him, the suppression of her gift was no part of her conception of wifely duty now. And, thanks to Charlotte, she no longer regarded her compact with God for Eric's life as a thing sacred and binding. Even before Charlotte had expressed herself so vigorously on the subject, Sheila had, indeed, grown to see that her vow to renounce her gift had been unfairly wrung from her by a too effective combination of accident and Ted's opinions. And after Charlotte had cried out upon that vow as "morbid, hysterical nonsense," after she had exclaimed that Sheila's only fault had been in wasting her gift, it was but a step for Sheila to the conclusion that her vow could not--_should_ not!--bind her. At last she saw herself free for work, if not for love; she saw herself the more free for work because love must be denied. Her work should be her recompense; she had earned it now, as all things worth the having must be earned--by what one suffers for them. And she believed that her work would be the better for all that she had suffered, all that she had endured. It would be the better for that secret, unceasing ache of her heart for a love forbi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   >>  



Top keywords:
Sheila
 

Charlotte

 

things

 
affection
 

earned

 

obstacle

 

longer

 

suffered

 

endured

 

wasting


regarded

 
compact
 

believed

 
wifely
 
conception
 

strove

 

husband

 

loyalty

 

secret

 

conclusion


unceasing

 

suppression

 

sacred

 

suffers

 

exclaimed

 
denied
 

unfairly

 

effective

 

hysterical

 

opinions


nonsense

 

combination

 
accident
 

recompense

 

expressed

 

binding

 

vigorously

 

renounce

 

subject

 

morbid


outlet
 
marriage
 

bitterest

 

mistaken

 

indestructible

 
surmounting
 

eluding

 
existence
 
clamored
 

prisoned