CHAPTER XXX 449
" I was speaking of myself ."
" Well , if you are not ambitious , you are -- " He paused . " What ?"
" I was going to say , impassioned : but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word , and been displeased . I mean , that human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you . I am sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude , and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus : any more than I can be content ," he added , with emphasis , " to live here buried in morass , pent in with mountains -- my nature , that God gave me , contravened ; my faculties , heaven-bestowed , paralysed -- made useless . You hear now how I contradict myself . I , who preached contentment with a humble lot , and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God ' s service -- I , His ordained minister , almost rave in my restlessness . Well , propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means ."
He left the room . In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in the whole previous month : yet still he puzzled me .
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their home . They both tried to appear as usual ; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed . Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet known . It would probably , as far as St . John was concerned , be a parting for years : it might be a parting for life .
" He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves ," she said : " natural affection and feelings more potent still . St . John looks quiet , Jane ; but he hides a fever in his vitals . You would think him gentle , yet in some things he is inexorable as death ; and the worst of it is , my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decision : certainly , I cannot for