<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395904" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Tale XVII</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">RESENTMENT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Females there are of unsuspicious mind,<br>Easy and soft and credulous and kind;<br>Who, when offended for the twentieth time,<br>Will hear the offender and forgive the crime:<br>And there are others whom, like these to cheat,<br>Asks but the humblest efforts of deceit;<br>But they, once injured, feel a strong disdain,<br>And, seldom pardoning, never trust again;<br>Urged by religion, they forgive--but yet<br>Guard the warm heart, and never more forget:<br>Those are like wax--apply them to the fire,<br>Melting, they take th' impressions you desire;<br>Easy to mould and fashion as you please,<br>And again moulded with an equal ease:<br>Like smelted iron these the forms retain,<br>But once impress'd, will never melt again.<br>A busy port a serious Merchant made<br>His chosen place to recommence his trade;<br>And brought his Lady, who, their children dead,<br>Their native seat of recent sorrow fled:<br>The husband duly on the quay was seen,<br>The wife at home became at length serene;<br>There in short time the social couple grew<br>With all acquainted, friendly with a few;<br>When the good lady, by disease assail'd,<br>In vain resisted--hope and science fail'd:<br>Then spoke the female friends, by pity led,<br>'Poor merchant Paul! what think ye? will he wed?<br>A quiet, easy, kind, religious man,<br>Thus can he rest?--I wonder if he can.'<br>He too, as grief subsided in his mind,<br>Gave place to notions of congenial kind:<br>Grave was the man, as we have told before;<br>His years were forty--he might pass for more;<br>Composed his features were, his stature low,<br>His air important, and his motion slow:<br>His dress became him, it was neat and plain,<br>The colour purple, and without a stain;<br>His words were few, and special was his care<br>In simplest terms his purpose to declare;<br>A man more civil, sober, and discreet,<br>More grave and corteous, you could seldom meet:<br>Though frugal he, yet sumptuous was his board,<br>As if to prove how much he could afford;<br>For though reserved himself, he loved to see<br>His table plenteous, and his neighbours free:<br>Among these friends he sat in solemn style,<br>And rarely soften'd to a sober smile:<br>For this, observant friends their reason gave -<br>'Concerns so vast would make the idlest grave;<br>And for such man to be of language free,<br>Would seem incongruous as a singing tree:<br>Trees have their music, but the birds they shield -<br>The pleasing tribute for protection yield;<br>Each ample tree the tuneful choir defends,<br>As this rich merchant cheers his happy friends!'<br>In the same town it was his chance to meet<br>A gentle Lady, with a mind discreet;<br>Neither in life's decline, nor bloom of youth,<br>One famed for maiden modesty and truth:<br>By nature cool, in pious habits bred,<br>She look'd on lovers with a virgin's dread:<br>Deceivers, rakes, and libertines were they,<br>And harmless beauty their pursuit and prey;<br>As bad as giants in the ancient times<br>Were modern lovers, and the same their crimes:<br>Soon as she heard of her all-conquering charms,<br>At once she fled to her defensive arms;<br>Conn'd o'er the tales her maiden aunt had told,<br>And, statue like, was motionless and cold:<br>From prayer of love, like that Pygmalion pray'd,<br>Ere the hard stone became the yielding maid,<br>A different change in this chaste nymph ensued,<br>And turn'd to stone the breathing flesh and blood:<br>Whatever youth described his wounded heart,<br>'He came to rob her, and she scorn'd his art;<br>And who of raptures once presumed to speak,<br>Told listening maids he thought them fond and weak;<br>But should a worthy man his hopes display<br>In few plain words, and beg a yes or nay,<br>He would deserve an answer just and plain,<br>Since adulation only moved disdain -<br>Sir, if my friends object not, come again.'<br>Hence, our grave Lover, though he liked the </div><div style="margin:10px 0">face,<br>Praised not a feature--dwelt not on a grace;<br>But in the simplest terms declared his state:<br>'A widow'd man, who wish'd a virtuous mate;<br>Who fear'd neglect, and was compell'd to trust<br>Dependants wasteful, idle, or unjust;<br>Or should they not the trusted stores destroy,<br>At best, they could not help him to enjoy;<br>But with her person and her prudence bless'd,<br>His acts would prosper, and his soul have rest:<br>Would she be his?'--'Why, that was much to say;<br>She would consider; he awhile might stay:<br>She liked his manners, and believed his word;<br>He did not flatter, flattery she abhorr'd:<br>It was her happy lot in peace to dwell -<br>Would change make better what was now so well?<br>But she would ponder.' 'This,' he said, 'was </div><div style="margin:10px 0">kind;'<br>And begg'd to know 'when she had fix'd her mind.<br>Romantic maidens would have scorn'd the air,<br>And the cool prudence of a mind so fair;<br>But well it pleased this wiser maid to find<br>Her own mild virtues in her lover's mind.<br>His worldly wealth she sought, and quickly grew<br>Pleased with her search, and happy in the view<br>Of vessels freighted with abundant stores,<br>Of rooms whose treasures press'd the groaning </div><div style="margin:10px 0">floors;<br>And he of clerks and servants could display<br>A little army on a public day:<br>Was this a man like needy bard to speak<br>Of balmy lip, bright eye, or rosy cheek?<br>The sum appointed for her widow'd state,<br>Fix'd by her friend, excited no debate;<br>Then the kind lady gave her hand and heart,<br>And, never finding, never dealt with art:<br>In his engagements she had no concern;<br>He taught her not, nor had she wish to learn;<br>On him in all occasions she relied,<br>His word her surety, and his worth her pride.<br>When ship was launch'd, and merchant Paul had </div><div style="margin:10px 0">share,<br>A bounteous feast became the lady's care;<br>Who then her entry to the dinner made,<br>In costly raiment, and with kind parade.<br>Call'd by this duty on a certain day,<br>And robed to grace it in a rich array,<br>Forth from her room, with measured step she came,<br>Proud of th' event, and stately look'd the dame;<br>The husband met her at his study door -<br>'This way, my love--one moment, and no more:<br>A trifling business--you will understand -<br>The law requires that you affix your hand;<br>But first attend, and you shall learn the cause<br>Why forms like these have been prescribed by laws.'<br>Then from his chair a man in black arose,<br>And with much quickness hurried off his prose -<br>That 'Ellen Paul, the wife, and so forth, freed<br>From all control, her own the act and deed,<br>And forasmuch'--said she, 'I've no distrust,<br>For he that asks it is discreet and just;<br>Our friends are waiting--where am I to sign? -<br>There?--Now be ready when we meet to dine.'<br>This said, she hurried off in great delight,<br>The ship was launch'd, and joyful was the night.<br>Now, says the reader, and in much disdain,<br>This serious Merchant was a rogue in grain;<br>A treacherous wretch, an artful sober knave,<br>And ten times worse for manners cool and grave:<br>And she devoid of sense, to set her hand<br>To scoundrel deeds she could not understand.<br>Alas! 'tis true; and I in vain had tried<br>To soften crime that cannot be denied;<br>And might have labour'd many a tedious verse<br>The latent cause of mischief to rehearse:<br>Be it confess'd, that long, with troubled look,<br>This Trader view'd a huge accompting-book;<br>(His former marriage for a time delay'd<br>The dreaded hour, the present lent its aid<br>But he too clearly saw the evil day,<br>And put the terror, by deceit, away;<br>Thus, by connecting with his sorrows crime,<br>He gain'd a portion of uneasy time. -<br>All this too late the injur'd Lady saw:<br>What law had given, again she gave to law;<br>His guilt, her folly--these at once impress'd<br>Their lasting feelings on her guileless breast.<br>'Shame I can bear,' she cried, 'and want </div><div style="margin:10px 0">sustain,<br>But will not see this guilty wretch again:'<br>For all was lost, and he with many a tear<br>Confess'd the fault--she turning scorn'd to hear.<br>To legal claims he yielded all his worth.<br>But small the portion, and the wrong'd were wroth,<br>Nor to their debtor would a part allow;<br>And where to live he know not--knew not how.<br>The Wife a cottage found, and thither went<br>The suppliant man, but she would not relent:<br>Thenceforth she utter'd with indignant tone,<br>'I feel the misery, and will feel alone.'<br>He would turn servant for her sake, would keep<br>The poorest school, the very streets would sweep,<br>To show his love. 'It was already shown,<br>And her affliction should be all her own:<br>His wants and weakness might have touch'd her </div><div style="margin:10px 0">heart,<br>But from his meanness she resolved to part.'<br>In a small alley was she lodged, beside<br>Its humblest poor, and at the view she cried,<br>'Welcome! yes! let me welcome, if I can,<br>The fortune dealt me by this cruel man:<br>Welcome this low-thatch'd roof, this shatter'd </div><div style="margin:10px 0">door,<br>These walls of clay, this miserable floor;<br>Welcome my envied neighbours; this to you<br>Is all familiar--all to me is new:<br>You have no hatred to the loathsome meal,<br>Your firmer nerves no trembling terrors feel,<br>Nor, what you must expose, desire you to conceal;<br>What your coarse feelings bear without offence,<br>Disgusts my taste and poisons every sense:<br>Daily shall I your sad relations hear<br>Of wanton women and of men severe;<br>There will dire curses, dreadful oaths abound,<br>And vile expressions shock me and confound:<br>Noise of dull wheels, and songs with horrid words,<br>Will be the music that this lane affords;<br>Mirth that disgusts, and quarrels that degrade<br>The human mind, must my retreat invade:<br>Hard is my fate! yet easier to sustain,<br>Than to abide with guilt and fraud again;<br>A grave impostor! who expects to meet,<br>In such gray locks and gravity, deceit?<br>Where the sea rages and the billows roar,<br>Men know the danger, and they quit the shore;<br>But, be there nothing in the way descried,<br>When o'er the rocks smooth runs the wicked tide -<br>Sinking unwarn'd, they execrate the shock<br>And the dread peril of the sunken rock.'<br>A frowning world had now the man to dread,<br>Taught in no arts, to no profession bred;<br>Pining in grief, beset with constant care<br>Wandering he went, to rest he knew not where.<br>Meantime the Wife--but she abjured the name -<br>Endured her lot, and struggled with the shame;<br>When, lo! an uncle on the mother's side,<br>In nature something, as in blood allied,<br>Admired her firmness, his protection gave,<br>And show'd a kindness she disdain'd to crave.<br>Frugal and rich the man, and frugal grew<br>The sister-mind without a selfish view;<br>And further still--the temp'rate pair agreed<br>With what they saved the patient poor to feed:<br>His whole estate, when to the grave consign'd,<br>Left the good kinsman to the kindred mind;<br>Assured that law, with spell secure and tight,<br>Had fix'd it as her own peculiar right.<br>Now to her ancient residence removed,<br>She lived as widow, well endowed and loved;<br>Decent her table was, and to her door<br>Came daily welcomed the neglected poor:<br>The absent sick were soothed by her relief,<br>As her free bounty sought the haunts of grief;<br>A plain and homely charity had she,<br>And loved the objects of her alms to see;<br>With her own hands she dress'd the savoury meat,<br>With her own fingers wrote the choice receipt;<br>She heard all tales that injured wives relate,<br>And took a double interest in their fate;<br>But of all husbands not a wretch was known<br>So vile, so mean, so cruel as her own.<br>This bounteous Lady kept an active spy,<br>To search th' abodes of want, and to supply;<br>The gentle Susan served the liberal dame -<br>Unlike their notions, yet their deeds the same:<br>No practised villain could a victim find<br>Than this stern Lady more completely blind;<br>Nor (if detected in his fraud) could meet<br>One less disposed to pardon a deceit;<br>The wrong she treasured, and on no pretence<br>Received th' offender, or forgot th' offence:<br>But the kind Servant, to the thrice-proved knave<br>A fourth time listen'd and the past forgave.<br>First in her youth, when she was blithe and gay;<br>Came a smooth rogue, and stole her love away:<br>Then to another and another flew,<br>To boast the wanton mischief he could do:<br>Yet she forgave him, though so great her pain,<br>That she was never blithe or gay again.<br>Then came a spoiler, who, with villain-art<br>Implored her hand, and agonized her heart;<br>He seized her purse, in idle waste to spend<br>With a vile wanton, whom she call'd her friend;<br>Five years she suffer'd--he had revell'd five -<br>Then came to show her he was just alive;<br>Alone he came, his vile companion dead,<br>And he, a wand'ring pauper, wanting bread;<br>His body wasted, wither'd life and limb,<br>When this kind soul became a slave to him:<br>Nay, she was sure that, should he now survive,<br>No better husband would be left alive:<br>For him she mourn'd, and then, alone and poor,<br>Sought and found comfort at her Lady's door:<br>Ten years she served, and mercy her employ,<br>Her tasks were pleasure, and her duty joy.<br>Thus lived the Mistress and the Maid, design'd<br>Each other's aid--one cautious, and both kind:<br>Oft at their window, working, they would sigh<br>To see the aged and the sick go by;<br>Like wounded bees, that at their home arrive<br>Slowly and weak, but labouring for the hive.<br>The busy people of a mason's yard<br>The curious Lady view'd with much regard;<br>With steady motion she perceived them draw<br>Through blocks of stone the slowly-working saw;<br>It gave her pleasure and surprise to see<br>Among these men the signs of revelry:<br>Cold was the season, and confined their view,<br>Tedious their tasks, but merry were the crew;<br>There she beheld an aged pauper wait,<br>Patient and still, to take an humble freight;<br>Within the panniers on an ass he laid<br>The ponderous grit, and for the portion paid;<br>This he re-sold, and, with each trifling gift,<br>Made shift to live, and wretched was the shift.<br>Now will it be by every reader told<br>Who was this humble trader, poor and old. -<br>In vain an author would a name suppress,<br>From the least hint a reader learns to guess;<br>Of children lost, our novels sometimes treat,<br>We never care--assured again to meet:<br>In vain the writer for concealment tries,<br>We trace his purpose under all disguise;<br>Nay, though he tells us they are dead and gone,<br>Of whom we wot, they will appear anon;<br>Our favourites fight, are wounded, hopeless lie,<br>Survive they cannot--nay, they cannot die;<br>Now, as these tricks and stratagems are known,<br>'Tis best, at once, the simple truth to own.<br>This was the husband--in an humble shed<br>He nightly slept, and daily sought his bread:<br>Once for relief the weary man applied;<br>'Your wife is rich,' the angry vestry cried:<br>Alas! he dared not to his wife complain,<br>Feeling her wrongs, and fearing her disdain:<br>By various methods he had tried to live,<br>But not one effort would subsistence give:<br>He was an usher in a school, till noise<br>Made him less able than the weaker boys;<br>On messages he went, till he in vain<br>Strove names, or words, or meanings to retain;<br>Each small employment in each neighbouring town,<br>By turn he took, to lay as quickly down:<br>For, such his fate, he fail'd in all he plann'd,<br>And nothing prosper'd in his luckless hand.<br>At his old home, his motive half suppress'd,<br>He sought no more for riches, but for rest:<br>There lived the bounteous Wife, and at her gate<br>He saw in cheerful groups the needy wait;<br>'Had he a right with bolder hope t'apply?'<br>He ask'd--was answer'd, and went groaning by:<br>For some remains of spirit, temper, pride,<br>Forbade a prayer he knew would be denied.<br>Thus was the grieving man, with burthen'd ass,<br>Seen day by day along the street to pass:<br>'Who is he, Susan? who the poor old man?<br>He never calls--do make him, if you can.'<br>The conscious damsel still delay'd to speak,<br>She stopp'd confused, and had her words to seek;<br>From Susan's fears the fact her mistress knew,<br>And cried--'The wretch! what scheme has he in view?<br>Is this his lot?--but let him, let him feel -<br>Who wants the courage, not the will, to steal.'<br>A dreadful winter came, each day severe,<br>Misty when mild, and icy cold when clear;<br>And still the humble dealer took his load,<br>Returning slow, and shivering on the road:<br>The Lady, still relentless, saw him come,<br>And said--'I wonder, has the wretch a home?' -<br>'A hut! a hovel!' 'Then his fate appears<br>To suit his crime.'--'Yes, lady, not his years; -<br>No! nor his sufferings--nor that form decay'd.'<br>'Well! let the parish give its paupers aid:<br>You must the vileness of his acts allow.' -<br>'And you, dear lady, that he feels it now.'<br>'When such dissemblers on their deeds reflect,<br>Can they the pity they refused expect?<br>He that doth evil, evil shall he dread.' -<br>'The snow,' quoth Susan, 'falls upon his bed -<br>It blows beside the thatch--it melts upon his head</div><div style="margin:10px 0">.'<br>'Tis weakness, child, for grieving guilt to feel.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">-<br>'Yes, but he never sees a wholesome meal;<br>Through his bare dress appears his shrivell'd skin,<br>And ill he fares without, and worse within:<br>With that weak body, lame, diseased, and slow,<br>What cold, pain, peril, must the sufferer know!'<br>'Think on his crime.'--'Yes, sure 'twas very wrong;<br>But look (God bless him!) how he gropes along.'<br>'Brought me to shame.'--Oh! yes, I know it all -<br>What cutting blast! and he can scarcely crawl:<br>He freezes as he moves--he dies! if he should fall:<br>With cruel fierceness drives this icy sleet -<br>And must a Christian perish in the street,<br>In sight of Christians?--There! at last, he lies; -<br>Nor unsupported can he ever rise:<br>He cannot live.' 'But is he fit to die?' -<br>Here Susan softly mutter'd a reply,<br>Look'd round the room--said something of its state,<br>Dives the rich, and Lazarus at his gate;<br>And then aloud--'In pity do behold<br>The man affrighten'd, weeping, trembling, cold:<br>Oh! how those flakes of snow their entrance win<br>Through the poor rags, and keep the frost within.<br>His very heart seems frozen as he goes,<br>Leading that starved companion of his woes:<br>He tried to pray--his lips, I saw them move,<br>And he so turn'd his piteous looks above;<br>But the fierce wind the willing heart opposed,<br>And, ere he spoke, the lips in misery closed:<br>Poor suffering object! yes, for ease you pray'd,<br>And God will hear--He only, I'm afraid.'<br>'Peace! Susan, peace! pain ever follows sin.' -<br>'Ah! then,' thought Susan, 'when will ours begin?<br>When reach'd his home, to what a cheerless fire<br>And chilling bed will those cold limbs retire!<br>Yet ragged, wretched as it is, that bed<br>Takes half the space of his contracted shed;<br>I saw the thorns beside the narrow grate,<br>With straw collected in a putrid state:<br>There will he, kneeling, strive the fire to raise,<br>And that will warm him, rather than the blaze:<br>The sullen, smoky blaze, that cannot last<br>One moment after his attempt is past;<br>And I so warmly and so purely laid,<br>To sink to rest--indeed, I am afraid.'<br>'Know you his conduct?'--'Yes, indeed I know,<br>And how he wanders in the wind and snow;<br>Safe in our rooms the threat'ning storm we hear,<br>But he feels strongly what we faintly fear.'<br>'Wilful was rich, and he the storm defied;<br>Wilful is poor, and must the storm abide,'<br>Said the stern Lady; ''tis in vain to feel;<br>Go and prepare the chicken for our meal.'<br>Susan her task reluctantly began,<br>And utter'd as she went--'The poor old man!'<br>But while her soft and ever-yielding heart<br>Made strong protest against her lady's part,<br>The lady's self began to think it wrong<br>To feel so wrathful and resent so long.<br>'No more the wretch would she receive again,<br>No more behold him--but she would sustain;<br>Great his offence, and evil was his mind -<br>But he had suffer'd, and she would be kind:<br>She spurn'd such baseness, and she found within<br>A fair acquittal from so foul a sin;<br>Yet she too err'd, and must of Heaven expect<br>To be rejected, him should she reject.'<br>Susan was summon'd--'I'm about to do<br>A foolish act, in part seduced by you;<br>Go to the creature--say that I intend,<br>Foe to his sins, to be his sorrow's friend:<br>Take, for his present comforts, food and wine,<br>And mark his feelings at this act of mine:<br>Observe if shame be o'er his features spread,<br>By his own victim to be soothed and fed;<br>But, this inform him, that it is not love<br>That prompts my heart, that duties only move.<br>Say, that no merits in his favour plead,<br>But miseries only, and his abject need;<br>Nor bring me grov'ling thanks, nor high-flown </div><div style="margin:10px 0">praise;<br>I would his spirits, not his fancy, raise:<br>Give him no hope that I shall ever more<br>A man so vile to my esteem restore;<br>But warn him rather, that, in time of rest,<br>His crimes be all remember'd and confess'd:<br>I know not all that form the sinner's debt,<br>But there is one that he must not forget.'<br>The mind of Susan prompted her with speed<br>To act her part in every courteous deed:<br>All that was kind she was prepared to say,<br>And keep the lecture for a future day;<br>When he had all life's comforts by his side,<br>Pity might sleep, and good advice be tried.<br>This done, the mistress felt disposed to look,<br>As self-approving, on a pious book;<br>Yet, to her native bias still inclined,<br>She felt her act too merciful and kind;<br>But when, long musing on the chilling scene<br>So lately past--the frost and sleet so keen -<br>The man's whole misery in a single view -<br>Yes! she could think some pity was his due.<br>Thus fix'd, she heard not her attendant glide<br>With soft slow step--till, standing by her side,<br>The trembling servant gasp'd for breath, and shed<br>Relieving tears, then utter'd, 'He is dead!'<br>'Dead!' said the startled Lady.--'Yes, he fell<br>Close at the door where he was wont to dwell;<br>There his sole friend, the Ass, was standing by,<br>Half dead himself, to see his Master die.'<br>'Expired he then, good Heaven! for want of </div><div style="margin:10px 0">food?' -<br>'No! crusts and water in a corner stood: -<br>To have this plenty, and to wait so long,<br>And to be right too late, is doubly wrong:<br>Then, every day to see him totter by,<br>And to forbear--Oh! what a heart had I!'<br>'Blame me not, child; I tremble at the news.'<br>'Tis my own heart,' said Susan, 'I accuse:<br>To have this money in my purse--to know<br>What grief was his, and what to grief we owe;<br>To see him often, always to conceive<br>How he must pine and languish, groan and grieve,<br>And every day in ease and peace to dine,<br>And rest in comfort!--What a heart is mine!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395904" data-title="Tale XVII de George Crabbe" data-description="RESENTMENT. Females there are of unsuspicious mind, Easy and soft and credulous and kind; Who, when offended for the twentieth time, Will hear the offender and forgive the crime: And there are others whom, like these to cheat, Asks but the humble..."></div> </div> </div>

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