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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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“My dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole class,- debased, unedu- cated, indolent, provoking,- put, without any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority in our world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control, who haven’t even an enlightened regard to their own interest,- for that’s the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a community so organized, what can a man of honorable and humane feelings do, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden his heart? I can’t buy every poor wretch I see. I can’t turn knight-errant, and undertake to redress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The most I can do is to try and keep out of the way of it.” St. Clare’s fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he looked annoyed, but suddenly calling up a gay smile, he said, “Come, cousin, don’t stand there looking like one of the Fates; you’ve only seen a peep through the curtain,- a specimen of what is going on, the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to anything. ‘Tis like looking too close into the de- tails of Dinah’s kitchen;” and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself with his paper. Miss Ophelia sat down, and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat there grim with indignation. She knit and knit, but while she mused the fire burned; at last she broke out- |
