The Bracelets by Maria Edgeworth
page 12 of 52 (23%)
page 12 of 52 (23%)
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good-tempered--it's all the same thing." "No, indeed, I understand by
them two very different things. You are good-natured, Cecilia, for you are desirous to oblige and serve your companions, to gain them praise and save them from blame, to give them pleasure, and to relieve them from pain; but Leonora is good-tempered, for she can bear with their foibles, and acknowledge her own. Without disputing about the right, she sometimes yields to those who are in the wrong. In short, her temper is perfectly good, for it can bear and forbear." "I wish that mine could," said Cecilia, sighing. "It may," replied Mrs. Villars; "but it is not wishes alone which can improve us in any thing. Turn the same exertion and perseverance which have won you the prize to-day to this object, and you will meet with the same success; perhaps not on the first, the second, or the third attempt, but depend upon it that you will at last; every new effort will weaken your bad habits and strengthen your good ones. But you must not expect to succeed all at once; I repeat it to you, for habit must be counteracted by habit. It would be as extravagant in us to expect that all our faults could be destroyed by one punishment, were it ever so severe, as it was in the Roman emperor we were reading of a few days ago to wish that all the heads of his enemies were upon one neck, that he might cut them off by one blow." Here Mrs. Villars took Cecilia by the hand, and they began to walk home. Such was the nature of Cecilia's mind, that, when any object was forcibly impressed on her imagination, it caused a temporary suspension of her reasoning faculties. Hope was too strong a stimulus for her spirits; and when fear did take possession of her mind, it was attended with total debility. Her vanity was now as much mortified as in the |
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