"Oh," it is
suggested at once to me, "you are more sensitive than she is." How dare
I say that? How hateful is the assumption of superior sensitiveness as
an excuse for want of endurance!
November 4th.--Ellen Charteris, my husband's cousin, belongs to a Roman
Catholic branch of the family, and is an abbess. I remember saying to
her that I wondered that she and her nuns could spend such useless
lives. She replied that although she and all good Catholics believe in
the atonement of Christ, they also believe that works of piety in excess
of what may be demanded of us, even if they are done in secret, are a
set-off against the sins of the world. In this form the doctrine has
not much to commend itself to me, and it is assumed that the nuns' works
are pious. But in a sense it is true. "The very hairs of your head are
all numbered." The fall of a grain of dust is recorded.
November 7th--A kind of peace occasionally visits me. It is not the
indifference begotten of time, for my husband and my child are nearer
and dearer than ever to me.
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