CHAPTER XXXI 453
them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime, let me ask myself one question-- Which is better?-- To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort-- no struggle;-- but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester ' s mistress; delirious with his love half my time-- for he would-- oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He DID love me-- no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace-- for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me-- it is what no man besides will ever be.-- But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool ' s paradise at Marseilles-- fevered with delusive bliss one hour-- suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next-- or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!
Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains-
" The air was mild, the dew was balm."
While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping-- and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief