Christine: Or Woman's Trials and Triumphs

10. Theory and Practice

88 ch a p ter ten Theory and Practice Again Christine was free to mingle, in the hours of recreation, with her schoolmates, to join their walks, and to listen to their merry chat, and to express her sentiments in return. At first, all this was very amusing, but gradually she wearied of the recurrence of the same themes, more particularly since she was unable to bear any part in the discussion of them. She cared nothing for dress, knew nothing of the society of which they spoke, and grew tired of the catalogue of beaux, and the glib enumeration of youthful flirtations which seemed to constitute the chief topics of conversation. She joined the groups of girls less and less frequently, and withdrew still more to the solitude of her own room, where she found a quiet pleasure in reading and in study. In this chamber, surrounded by her books, she lived in a world of her own; she forgot, in the stirring scenes of the past, all the trivialities of the present, and half imagined herself an actor in the histories she read. She wrote, too, and was never happier than when pouring out her wild fancies and bewildering thoughts on paper. It seemed to give her restless mind relief . She felt that she must express herself, and this was the only   Christine 89 possible way. She felt that it would be profanation to bring forward all that she held sacred to the scoffing gaze of most of her schoolmates; and though her constant friend, Helen Harper, perhaps, would not have made a jest of her, yet there was a mocking expression in her cool, calm eye, as she looked steadily at Christine in her occasional outbursts of enthusiasm, that sent a chill over her, and induced her to endeavor to check any expressions of a similar character in the future; yet Helen’s regard was very precious to her, and for this very reason she kept back her most secret and highest feelings from her inspection. It was Christine, the fine scholar, the strong spirit, that Helen prized, and Christine, the dreamer, shrank from displaying those restless, far-reaching, and tormenting, because unsatisfied , yearnings that she well knew would only be considered as so many proofs of her weakness by her friend. But this withdrawal from their society, and disrelish of their favorite themes, was not at all liked by her schoolmates. “Birds of a feather flock together,” Rowena said, looking after Helen and Christine, as they walked together in the garden, where the fall flowers lifted up their sturdy blossoms amidst the dropping of the withered leaves, like cheerful and brave spirits unaffected by adversity. “There go the precious pair, and well matched they are. I declare,” she continued, “it is amusing to draw Christine out, as I have done sometimes. She is as fresh and ignorant of the world as a baby. You should have heard her the other day, when I was joking her about lovers. She looked at me for a while, as if she had no idea what I meant, and at last said, ‘why, Rowena, I never thought of such a thing; I never had an admirer in my life.’ I believed her fully. I don’t believe the child thinks or cares about a lover, and, if she did, I’m sure nobody would ever think of falling in love with her. But just imagine her listening to Philip Armstrong’s nonsense. How she would stare at him! At the next soirée I mean to introduce him to her, just to see the fun,” and she burst into a peal of laughter at the idea in anticipation. Christine 90 Meanwhile, Helen and Christine were still walking in the garden, Christine stopping, every now and then, to pluck here and there a flower, which she added to a bouquet she held in her hand. At last she spoke: “How different people are,” she said, “and yet it is as unreasonable in us to find fault with, and try to make them over, because they don’t have the same aims, and understand our feelings , as it would be to find fault with these chrysanthemums and china asters, because they are not roses. So we ought to take people as we find them, and be satisfied, for God has made them so.” “That’s one of your nonsensical ideas...