"But you have everything to interest you even here," returned
Beulah, glancing around at the numerous paintings and engravings
which were suspended on all sides, while ivory, marble, and bronze
statuettes were scattered in profusion about the room. Cornelia
followed her glance, and asked, with a joyless smile: "Do you suppose those bits of stone and canvas satisfy me?"
"Certainly. 'A thing of beauty should be a joy forever.' With all
these, and your library, surely you are never lonely."
"Pshaw! they tire me immensely. Sometimes the cramped positions and
unwinking eyes of that 'Holy Family' there over the chimneypiece
make me perfectly nervous."
"You must be morbidly sensitive at such times."
"Why? Do you never feel restless and dissatisfied without any
adequate reason?"
"No, never."
"And yet you have few sources of pleasure," said Cornelia, in a
musing tone, as her eyes wandered over her visitor's plain attire.
"No! my sources of enjoyment are as varied and extended as the
universe."
"I should like you to map them. Shut up all day with a parcel of
rude, stupid children, and released only to be caged again in a
small room in a second-rate boarding house. Really, I should fancy
they were limited indeed."
"No; I enjoy my brisk walk to school in the morning; the children
are neither so dull nor so bearish as you seem to imagine. I am
attached to many of them, and do not feel the day to be very long.
At three I hurry home, get my dinner, practice, and draw or sew till
the shadows begin to dim my eyes; then I walk until the lamps are
lighted, find numberless things to interest me, even in a winter's
walk, and go back to my room refreshed and eager to get to my books.
Once seated with them, what portion of the earth is there that I may
not visit, from the crystal Arctic temples of Odin and Thor to the
groves of Abyssinia? In this age of travel and cheap books I can sit
in my room in the third story, and, by my lamplight, see all, and
immeasurably more, than you, who have been traveling for eighteen
months. Wherever I go I find sources of enjoyment; even the pictures
in bookstores give me pleasure and contribute food for thought; and
when, as now, I am surrounded by all that wealth can collect, I
admire, and enjoy the beauty and elegance as much as if I owned it
all. So you see that my enjoyments are as varied as the universe
itself."