"[From Sir Jasper Meredith]: In all this wide world there is nothing but suffering: the child cries in its cradle ; it but begins as it will continue. In all ranks there is the same overpowering misery : the poor man has all the higher faculties of his being absorbed in a perpetual struggle with cold and hunger: a step higher, and pretence comes to aggravate poverty; dig we cannot, and to beg we are ashamed. Go on into what are called the higher classes, and there we find ambition the fever of the soul, and jealousy its canker. There are pleasures ; but there is no relish for them ; and luxuries which have become wearisome as wants. The feelings are either dull in selfish apathy, that excludes enjoyment; or unduly keen, till a look or word is torture."
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Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides)
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