There are a thousand things, mean and trifling in themselves,
which a man despises when he thinks of them in his philosophy, but
to dispense with which puts his philosophy to so stern a proof. Let
any plainest man who reads this think of his usual mode of getting
himself into his matutinal garments, and confess how much such a
struggle would cost him. And then children had come. The wife of the
labouring man does rear her children, and often rears them in health,
without even so many appliances of comfort as found their way into
Mrs. Crawley's cottage; but the task to her was almost more than she
could accomplish. Not that she ever fainted or gave way: she was
made of the sterner metal of the two, and could last on while he was
prostrate.
And sometimes he was prostrate--prostrate in soul and spirit. Then
would he complain with bitter voice, crying out that the world was
too hard for him, that his back was broken with his burden, that his
God had deserted him. For days and days, in such moods, he would stay
within his cottage, never darkening the door or seeing other face
than those of his own inmates. Those days were terrible both to him
and her. He would sit there unwashed, with his unshorn face resting
on his hand, with an old dressing-gown hanging loose about him,
hardly tasting food, seldom speaking, striving to pray, but striving
so frequently in vain.
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