for expression and rebelled against restraint, fiery and passionate
emotions that were seething under compression--a most undesirable
partner to sit in the lady's arm-chair on the domestic rug before the
fire. [_Que le diable faisait-elle dans cette galère,_] I have often
thought, looking back at my past self, and asking, Why did that foolish
girl make her bed so foolishly? But self-analysis shows the
contradictories in my nature that led me into so mistaken a course. I
have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength, and have
paid heavily for the weakness. As a child I used to suffer tortures of
shyness, and if my shoe-lace was untied would feel shamefacedly that
every eye was fixed on the unlucky string; as a girl I would shrink
away from strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked, so that I
was full of eager gratitude to any one who noticed me kindly; as the
young mistress of a house, I was afraid of my servants, and would let
careless work pass rather than bear the pain of reproving the ill-doer;
when I have been lecturing and debating with no lack of spirit on the
platform, I have preferred to go without what I wanted at the hotel
rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it; combative on the
platform in defence of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrel or
disapproval in the home, and am a coward at heart in private while a
good fighter in public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters of an
hour screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my
duty compelled me to reprove, and how often have I jeered at myself for
a fraud as the doughty platform combatant, when shrinking from blaming
some lad or lass for doing their work badly! An unkind look or word has
availed to make me shrink into myself as a snail into its shell, while
on the platform opposition makes me speak my best. So I slid into
marriage blindly and stupidly, fearing to give pain; fretted my heart
out for a year; then, roused by harshness and injustice, stiffened and
hardened, and lived with a wall of ice round me within which I waged