Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

7. CHAPTER VII: MISS AMEDROZ GOES TO PERIVALE (continued)

Poor Mrs Winterfield! She had been strong in her youth, and had herself sat through evening lectures with a fortitude which other people cannot attain. And she was strong too in her age, with the strength of a martyr, submitting herself with patience to wearinesses which are insupportable to those who have none of the martyr spirit. The sermons of Perivale were neither bright, nor eloquent, nor encouraging. All the old vicar or the young curate could tell she had heard hundreds of times. She knew it all by heart, and could have preached their sermons to them better than they could preach them to her. It was impossible that she could learn anything from them: and yet she would sit there thrice a day, suffering from cold in winter, from cough in spring, from heat in summer, and from rheumatism in autumn; and now that her doctor had forbidden her to go more than twice, recommending her to go only once, she really thought that she regarded the prohibition as a grievance. Indeed, to such as her, that expectation of the jewelled causeway, and of the perfect pavement that shall never be worn, must be everything. But if she was right right as to herself and others then why has the world been made so pleasant? Why is the fruit of the earth so sweet; and the trees why are they so green; and the mountains so full of glory? Why are women so lovely? and why is it that the activity of man's mind is the only sure forerunner of man's progress? In Listening thrice a day to outpourings from the clergyman at Perivale there certainly was no activity of mind.

Now, in these days, Mrs Winterfield was near to her reward. That she had ensured that I cannot doubt. She had fed the poor, and filled the young full with religious teachings perhaps not wisely, and in her own way only too well, but yet as her judgment had directed her. She had cared little for herself forgiving injuries done to her, and not forgiving those only which she thought were done to the Lord. She had lived her life somewhat as the martyr lived, who stood for years on his pillar unmoved, while his nails grew through his flesh. So had she stood, doing, I fear, but little positive good with her large means but thinking nothing of her own comfort here, in comparison with the comfort of herself and others in the world to which she was going.