I understand you
only too well. This is about as bad," I reflected; "as anything in my
experience."
After admonishing my pupils with that sincere emotion to which the
occasion had given rise, that they should speak always respectfully of
their elders, but especially in the most tender and solemn tones of the
dead; after pointing out to them the perniciousness of a low and vulgar
curiosity, and expatiating on the vastness and superiority of the
spiritual life, compared with the earthly and carnal, I paused, only to
give, further on, a fuller illustration to my words, and said:--
"Now, Sophronia, you have an immortal soul?"
There was evidence of some faint hankering in Sophronia's face as she
mentally ran over the list of her possessions.
"No'm," said she; "I hain't--but I've got a cornycopia!"
I think it was then and there that my hopes for the elevation of juvenile
Wallencamp received their deathblow, and my labors, which had before been
cheered by a dream of partially satisfying success, at least, took on
an utterly goal-less and prosaical form.
These children, I was forced to admit, regarded the day of Mr. 'Lihu's
funeral as a holiday of rare and special interest, mysteriously bestowed
by Heaven.
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