I might,
indeed, if this were a sermon and there were a congregation unable to
get away, expatiate on the habit these weapons have of smiting with
equal fury the just and the unjust; how you only need to be a little
foolish, quite a little foolish, under conditions that seem to force
it upon you, and down they come, sure and relentless, and you are
smitten with a thoroughness that leaves you lame for years; how
motives are nothing, circumstances are nothing; how the motives may
have been aflame with goodness, the circumstances such that any other
course was impossible; how all these things don't matter in the
least,--you are and shall be smitten. But this is not a sermon. I have
no congregation. And why should I preach to a reader who meanwhile has
skipped?
It comforted Priscilla to find that almost the whole village wanted to
come and cook for her, or as the women put it "do" for her. Their
cooking powers were strictly limited, and they proposed to make up for
this by doing for her very completely in other ways; they would scrub,
sweep, clean windows, wash,--anything and everything they would do.
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