But I take it that a man may love several women and yet
love one of them the best of all, being true in the spirit to the law
which he breaks in the letter.
Now when I had attained nineteen years I was a man full grown, and
writing as I do in extreme old age, I may say it without false shame, a
very handsome youth to boot. I was not over tall, indeed, measuring but
five feet nine inches and a half in height, but my limbs were well made,
and I was both deep and broad in the chest. In colour I was, and my
white hair notwithstanding, am still extraordinarily dark hued, my eyes
also were large and dark, and my hair, which was wavy, was coal black.
In my deportment I was reserved and grave to sadness, in speech I was
slow and temperate, and more apt at listening than in talking. I weighed
matters well before I made up my mind upon them, but being made up,
nothing could turn me from that mind short of death itself, whether it
were set on good or evil, on folly or wisdom. In those days also I had
little religion, since, partly because of my father's secret teaching
and partly through the workings of my own reason, I had learned to doubt
the doctrines of the Church as they used to be set out. Youth is prone
to reason by large leaps as it were, and to hold that all things are
false because some are proved false; and thus at times in those days I
thought that there was no God, because the priest said that the image of
the Virgin at Bungay wept and did other things which I knew that it did
not do.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41