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The boy lay sleeping upon a soft white bed: his hands were folded peacefully upon his breast. Hard was the task the father knew was his, to break that sleep, that slumber so profound, and send his boy out into a cold and selfish world.
I suppose it was selfish of me to want to have you all to myself. If you would like to go back to your Aunt Rennie again, dear child." I added, "you have only to say so." What Tabitha said in reply I shall never forget; but neither, friendly reader, shall I tell it to you.
'I am glad you think so, Copperfield, rejoined Traddles, 'because, without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should happen to him I refer to the Reverend Horace
"No; I have been very blind and selfish," she replied, somewhat bitterly, "for every one but me seems to have seen that something was wrong. She has been very anxious to give me pleasure, and I fear has been burning the candle at both ends for my light. I wish I had known probably it lay just within my hand to prevent this, instead of leading her on by my often expressed delight.
Laura had given herself utterly to her husband, and if he had faults, if he was selfish, if he was sometimes coarse, if he was dissipated, she did not or would not see it. It was the passion of her life, the time when her whole nature went to flood tide and swept away all barriers. Was her husband ever cold or indifferent? She shut her eyes to everything but her sense of possession of her idol.
No sensitive girl, unfamiliar with the world and scarcely beyond childhood, would decide with such steadfast firmness, so wholly free from every selfish wish, the future of the man dearest to her heart. No, no!
I suppose I should; yet but what is the use, Maurice, of supposing? I know you have done it, and that is enough. How can I say what I might have done if something else had happened? Why, you might not have loved me." If there had been for a moment any sentiment of remorse in his selfish heart, the hesitation of her answer went far to dispel it.
How can I look her in the face, when I have not hesitated, out of selfish consideration for my own tranquillity, to forbid that frank avowal of the truth which her finer sense of duty had spontaneously bound her to make?
"That is begging the question," I replied. "What would such a selfish woman do in such a case, if her pleasure could not be gratified?" "You must ask that kind of woman," was her ironical answer. I rashly felt that her castle of strength was crumbling. I ventured farther. "I have done so." She turned slightly toward me, yet not nervously, as I had expected. "What did she say?"
If young people display affability only when in company with others, who move in the same, or in a more elevated sphere of life than themselves, but assume consequence, and betray an arrogant spirit amongst their servants; we cannot but suspect that their good qualities are only apparent, and their motives selfish.
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