Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

21. CHAPTER XXI: MRS ASKERTON'S GENEROSITY (continued)

I am not prepared to say that Mrs Askerton was a high-minded woman. Misfortunes had come upon her in life of a sort which are too apt to quench high nobility of mind in woman. There are calamities which, by their natural tendencies, elevate the character of women and add strength to the growth of feminine virtues but then, again, there are other calamities which few women can bear without some degradation, without some injury to that delicacy and tenderness which is essentially necessary to make a woman charming as a woman. In this, I think, the world is harder to women than to men; that a woman often loses much by the chance of adverse circumstances which a man only loses by his own misconduct. That there are women whom no calamity can degrade is true enough and so it is true that there are some men who are heroes; but such are exceptions both among men and women. Not such a one had Mrs Askerton been. Calamity had come upon her partly, indeed, by her own fault, though that might have been pardoned but the weight of her misfortunes had been too great for her strength, and she had become in some degree hardened by what she had endured; if not unfeminine, still she was feminine in an inferior degree, with womanly feelings of a lower order. And she had learned to intrigue, not being desirous of gaining aught by dishonest intriguing, but believing that she could only hold her own by carrying on her battle after that fashion. In all this I am speaking of the general character of the woman, and am not alluding to the one sin which she had committed. Thus, when she had first become acquainted with Miss Amedroz, her conscience had not rebuked her in that she was deceiving her new friend. When asked casually in conversation as to her maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. 'Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' she would have said; and would have failed to remember, as she did always fail to remember that nature does not require by any of its laws that self-preservation should be aided by falsehood.