human
The Italian.
gpt
Are you ready?
human
Do you like it?
gpt
Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with it.
human
Why?
gpt
It seemed to open with such promise--such foreboding of a most strange tale to be unfolded.
human
And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from England--really in Italy--under another sort of sky--that blue sky of the south which travellers describe.
gpt
You are sensible of that, Rose?
human
It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone.
gpt
When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish.
human
I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least.
gpt
How much of its outside?
human
First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory.
gpt
Like mine! what can you mean, child?
human
Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that glebe-house--a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys. What do you do there?
gpt
I sew, I read, I learn lessons.
human
Are you happy?
gpt
Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to do?
human
Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however, that I shall have an object in view; but if you only went on and on, like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now. In a day's wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse, each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing changes in Briarfield rectory. The plaster of the parlour ceilings, the paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same.
gpt
Is change necessary to happiness?
human
Yes.
gpt
Is it synonymous with it?
human
I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same.
gpt
Isn't she mad?
human
But, Rose, pursued Caroline,
gpt
I fear a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit.
human
Does 'The Italian' so end?
gpt
I thought so when I read it.
human
Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who buried his talent in a napkin--despicable sluggard!
gpt
Rose, observed Mrs. Yorke,
human
Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to trade with them, and make them ten talents more. Not in the dust of household drawers shall the coin be interred. I will _not_ deposit it in a broken-spouted teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among tea-things. I will _not_ commit it to your work-table to be smothered in piles of woollen hose. I will _not_ prison it in the linen press to find shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother (she got up from the floor)--
gpt
Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury.
human
Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you?
gpt
Yes, mother.
human
Sit down, and do a line of marking.
gpt
Do you think yourself oppressed now--a victim?
human
No, mother.
gpt
Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all womanly and domestic employment.
human
You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew. You do right to teach me, and to make me work.
gpt
Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of sheets?
human
Yes.
gpt
Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?
human
Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me.
gpt
You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone, observed Mrs. Yorke;
human
I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not.
gpt
I would advise all young ladies, pursued Mrs. Yorke,
human
But with love it need not be so very difficult, interposed Caroline.
gpt
Mothers love their children most dearly--almost better than they love themselves.
human
Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life yet to come for you, young miss.
gpt
But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms--any poor woman's infant, for instance--I feel that I love that helpless thing quite peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for it willingly, if it were delivered over entirely to my care--if it were quite dependent on me.
human
You _feel_! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led a great deal by your _feelings_, and you think yourself a very sensitive personage, no doubt. Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the real world by dint of common sense?
gpt
No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke.
human
Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face you see there with that of any early-rising, hard-working milkmaid.
gpt
My face is a pale one, but it is _not_ sentimental; and most milkmaids, however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more correctly, than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they would often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection, should act judiciously.
human
Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you would be guided by impulse.
gpt
Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love I _must_ and _shall_ love; and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings will induce me to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will be strong in compelling me to love.
human
Don't waste your dramatic effects. That was well said--it was quite fine; but it is lost on two women--an old wife and an old maid. There should have been a disengaged gentleman present.--Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?