In vain, too, he represented
to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his passion; the
impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping to marry the poor
country curate. Fancies would come in, how such things, strange as
they might seem, had happened already; might happen again. It was a
class of marriages for which he had always felt a strong dislike, even
suspicion and contempt; and though he was far more fitted, in family
as well as personal excellence, for such a match, than three out of
four who make them, yet he shrank with disgust from the notion of
being himself classed at last among the match-making parsons. Whether
there was "carnal pride" or not in that last thought, his soul so
loathed it, that he would gladly have thrown up his cure at Aberalva;
and would have done so actually, but for one word which Tom Thurnall
had spoken to him, and that was--Cholera.
That the cholera might come; that it probably would come, in the
course of the next two months, was news to him which was enough to
keep him at his post, let what would be the consequence. And gradually
he began to see a way out of his difficulty--and a very simple one;
and that was to die.
"That is the solution after all," said he. "I am not strong enough for
God's work: but I will not shrink from it, if I can help. If I cannot
master it, let it kill me; so at least I may have peace. I have failed
utterly here: all my grand plans have crumbled to ashes between my
fingers.
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