Art, when divorced from Religion, always becomes a wanton.
To forget benefits we have received is a crime. To remember benefits
we have bestowed is a greater one.
To some men a woman is a valuable book, carefully studied and
choicely guarded behind glass doors. To others, she is a daily
paper, idly scanned and tossed aside.
CHAPTER XIX
While Joy battled with her sorrow during the days following Preston
Cheney's burial, she woke to the consciousness that her history was
known in Beryngford. The indescribable change in the manner of her
acquaintances, the curiosity in the eyes of some, the insolence or
familiarity of others, all told her that her fears were realised; and
then there came a letter from the church authorities requesting her
to resign her position as organist.
This letter came to the young girl on one of those dreary autumn
nights when all the desolation of the dying summer, and none of the
exhilaration of the approaching winter, is in the air. She had been
labouring all day under a cloud of depression which hovered over her
heart and brain and threatened to wholly envelop her; and the letter
from the church committee cut her heart like a poniard stroke.
Sometimes we are able to bear a series of great disasters with
courage and equanimity, while we utterly collapse under some slight
misfortune.
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