I'd forgotten discretion.
My self reflection fails to show me the depth to which I've changed, fallen, failed... With the people I know, and with myself.
Worst of all, I've already begun forgetting... Who I used to be before. How had it felt then? How had I behaved then? How did I view things before?
Perhaps I am, too, displaying a sense of self-entitlement?
The lines I'd set for myself have started blurring. The barriers have started disintegrating.
It's scary to contemplate the full significance of that. It seems the most direct way to become a stuck up fool, a condescending adult, a dictatorial-
Well.
There's a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. - THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
I have to stop giving myself excuses for my behaviour... And actually notice the extent of my behaviour in the first place.
"Deeds, not words."
Whoever said it expressed it in such a concise manner that I cannot fathom the origins of the perspective. All I can is guess.
Guess, and guess that my feelings now are different, and occasion a different use of language to express.
Actions.
It seems impossible to dismiss actions, for actions are that which actually validates words. Words may be beautifully crafted, and in fact, insincere.
Actions seem to truly be a window to one's mind, soul, heart.
And yet actions can be controlled too. For one who's false, actions are but another medium.
And actions without words stay like a half explained notion- intriguing at best, ambiguous at worst.
Words.
I have a very strange relationship with words. Language, tone and connotations- one whereby I become oversensitive, yet fail myself to bring about the full extent of the idea I seek to express.
How can words be dismissed? If we were to scrutinise, the word choice itself speaks volumes of the person's intent, emotions and thoughts.
In the end, isn't it those thoughts, emotions, intents... That we count on? Be it from actions or words, the basis of our understanding of the world surrounding comes from the emotions demonstrated, the intent vocalised.
The music plays. Curiously, it helps me hear my mind better... When my heart is otherwise engaged by the emotions roaring in my ears.
Sometimes I can't get a grasp on the actions and words surrounding me, nor my own thoughts.
It's those times that I don't know if anything I thought I knew were true at all.
It's those times that I don't know how to get a grip- everything I touch seems to disappear into the intangible, everything I build my person around seems to flicker.
And it's not in me to bulldoze around, trying to figure out what is real, what is imaginary.
I take them all as imaginary.
I learn to dismiss my expectations as they form, denounce it as unreasonable, silly, too much.
No one is obligated to speak the truth to me, behave sincerely to me. To hope is one thing, and to expect it is a whole different thing on its own.
Because I'm not sure if I have a right to complain either way.
Who am I to?
Who am I to, when sometimes my lack of an comprehensive response hides my deeper reactions?
Who am I to, when sometimes sentence structure is corrected deliberately to weave another understanding into the words- hiding the emotions I actually want to say?
Who am I to, when I myself fail to be frank, direct, simple to understand?
Who am I to expect anything, when I refrain from voicing so much that I feel myself- deliberately, to hide them?
Who am I to expect anything, when it's either that or a strangely confrontational conversation when it hits something dear?
Who am I anyway? I don't know myself.
I don't even know what lies underneath all these coverings, laid on the premise of avoiding conflict.
By avoiding conflict, I think I've avoided many more, valuable things.
Funny thing is, I doubt I'll change regardless.
"Better keep on the surface, in the prudent old New York way, than risk uncovering a wound he could not heal."
Instead of the wound that could not be healed, we've uncovered the gulf that cannot be bridged.
Where it is a difference in perspectives, I would have enjoyed the discussion... As always, agreeing to disagree, leaving with a satisfaction at having heard new viewpoints, new evaluations.
This time what's uncovered is a fundamental parting of values system.
Do you know it's implications?
Different values. Different standards. It's different from different perspectives.
It goes deeper than the surface.
Tranquility is merely a prelude to storms.
It seemed too good to be true that there was calm at home.
But this has always been why I rejected the warming of relations all this while. I don't expect to last.
Depending on it served merely as disappointment, too many times.
When chaos descends, the thoughts I think seem almost deja vu.
The conflict, the tone, the issues, the attitudes... Nothing has changed for the better.
It has always only been the same issues, repackaged- if not intensified.
I escape from it. For now.
But only ever to this extent.
The negativity, swirling both internally and externally...
I don't like being brought to extremes. Because I know there's a part of me that would embrace darkness, extremity, depravity... I don't like being led to where logic loses automatically, because there'll be no benchmark for me to keep on the right side of the cliff.
Let's just hope that storms are merely a prelude to tranquility...
Autocracy. Domineering over others. Oppression. Scathing.
It seems like a pattern I'll find easy to fall into.
With power.
With power, and with an uncontrolled desire to maintain it.
I wonder now, how others live proper, wholesome lives.
I wonder how people manage to live without being a menace to themselves and others about them.
I wonder how the best of people manage to be a blessing to those around.
I wonder what it takes to be a better person.
A person less set on the role of anything but the individual in his success I've not seen.
But to say directly that she has no empathy... Wow.
We've finally found the point in which we'll stay forever at loggerheads. One that we will refuse to budge from our position.
Because the consequences extend beyond a discussion. Our arguments hold the fundamental make up of who we are.
That's why we vary.
Our valuation of society and social work, of welfare, of individuals, of success, of money, of meritocracy!
It came together. And we won't shift one inch, it appears.
Too close to the red button.
For my sake and others', I think I should keep my distance from people. As far as can be. As detached as I can be.
I really don't have control.
Over myself, my reactions...
Somewhere, some point, something goes wrong. I can't help being tense, even if I know I shouldn't have to. I can't help enforcing my point when I find it threatened.
The worst thing is that I find I can't help but judge people... People with a completely different values system from myself. Such irony. When I said that I wouldn't judge, I actually do. All I don't do is to translate my opinions into clear action. And I'm biased about who I judge, who I withhold judgement. Partly based on the presentation of that values system.
How superficial am I?
Self centredness.
A lack of leeway for other opinions to get voiced.
It's precisely the things I fear in myself that I hate seeing in others.
More likely than not, it's the thing I do that I judge others for doing likewise.
How twisted is that?
The bright side comes in a strange form. The warmth spreads in from an unexpected quarter-
It reminds me that, if just for the squad I took, I have to stay around.
Probably ineffectual as an influence, but to simply... Continue to know them. To continue speaking to them, to continue watching them, to continue smiling at them... I cannot relinquish my social existence.
The negativity is slowly stirring. Slowly creeping through the fibers of my being. Slowly... Getting to my head, yet beyond my grasp to control.
It seems a worthy aspiration.
It seems a worthy aspiration to string my emotions above my being, to cast it out... To cast it somewhere far, somewhere it won't get to me.
I need but time.
Time to counter them.
Time to- but no.
Burying them shall always be a more practical option. Casting them to the oblivion they grew from... I should be safe.
Once again I sink into the sea of practiced, forced calm.
 |
| 30 for graduation, the white-grey one being my own. ^^ |
I didn't know the letters would take so long. In retrospect, of course, I should have known.
The law of diminishing marginal utility- can I use it on the efficiency of my brain?
At about 2.50am my mind was spinning. I didn't know I was so weak- I'd lasted fine when I stayed up for the first day of YES. I was counting on it- I functioned fine until 11am then, on nothing. And yet this is the time I really didn't want to give up staying up.
3am, I set an alarm, and went to rest away from my bed... Thinking that if I went to my bed, I probably wouldn't be able to pull myself up. The alarm frightened me awake. Thank heavens it did- I was left with significantly less letters, but to a brain that was sluggish... The challenge was tenfold.
I'd struggled with Amanda's about 2, and got so exasperated midway as I realised that it was incoherent. When I returned to it at 4, I found that I knew what I wanted to say- the ideas that had previously run in circles took form. At least I could get a grip with the things I wanted to say. Vocabulary escaped me, but I had better things to do than to curse nature.
At 6, I truly began panicking in earnest. With my mind being drained of the words I wanted to use, the expressions I wanted to use.
With a growing sense of dread, I realised that I shouldn't have started the majority of letter writing so late. With only an hour's sleep, the memories I needed to remember, needed to allude to and respond to slipped through my fingers. Again.
Joanne's shouldn't have been so short. Kristine's shouldn't have been so short.
Ken's shouldn't have been so short.
And dear heaven, I wasn't even started on Shou's when I left the house .
I wonder if it's the effect of inadequate sleep or my natural paranoia when things don't go as expected. Unable to hurry the assembly, unable to sneak away from the eyes of teachers in the hall, I found my fingers twisting, twisting, twisting... A dark whisper in my mind suggested the amusement of twisting my fingers until they broke.
- I said I self censored, didn't I? This is where I did. One whole chunk.-
I was surprised when Tzu-Hsiang handed me an envelope, but I guess he realised how it could easily be misinterpreted for he hastily said it wasn't from him. Looking further, I saw it to be from Lucy. Jiawen didn't appear to realise as soon as I did, nor did she notice what I meant by retaliation when I dug out my envelope for Lucy and passed it to Tzu-Hsiang. It was amusing to watch as Yong Sheng and Jiawen both misinterpreted it as my letter to Kuan.
But no. As much as I do owe him an apology of sorts for almost making life hard for him for two years, the letters were for my friends, my squadmates, the people most of whom I had shared my life with.
It was as though a boulder was released once I completed Shou's letter. For a while, I breathed again.
Walk upstage. Smile. Handshake with teachers. Stand in line. Forward. Gather. Smile. Exit. I tried to watch as everyone had their turn. I tried to watch in particular when my friends had their turn. But unlike how I'd want to write in fiction, the movements weren't carved in my head.
None of them. A flash, like the moment that it was... Evoking an innate cringe, a smile, whichever was more applicable. But in the end, they were merely moments. Some made immortal, through pictures. Some just returning to a single action within the turning wheels of fate.
Tremble. Walk upstage. Smile. Handshake with teachers. Stand in line. Tremble. Forward. Gather. Smile. Exit. Damn. Once again, it appeared as if I didn't know how to control my reactions. I can only hope it wasn't quite obvious. So stupid, to have my self indicate a fear I did not feel.
I'd always found it somewhat strange when the seniors' graduation album comprised themselves and person A, and person B, and person C, etc etc etc. Now I understand.
I'd always found the free time as the seniors roamed around somewhat chaotic. Now I understand.
I understand how it feels to want to grip tightly on the memories forgotten, memories fading, and memories now, while there's still a "together".
To want to find everyone, just everyone who made a difference in your life.
I'm just glad that I needn't depend solely on my camera, for that failed me.
Facebook stays as a convenient, sweet source of memories at graduation. (I should like to make a collage sometime. Not now, but some time... Of the people I'm grateful for.)
At the end of it all I could only be glad I didn't listen to my sister's suggestion to stop writing and just sleep. At the end of it all I could only be glad that the letters and bracelets appeared to be received well.
The smiles received were invaluable, even if I was wrought with worry that the contents of their note/letter would disappoint.
The messages sent in reply to my letters were heartwarming. The knowledge that Xing Yao and Kristine both liked the bracelet enough to put it on immediately... was extremely heartening. ^^
 |
| Clockwise: Bookmark from Ms Chong, chocolate cornflakes from Xue Li, painted penguin card from Gloria, letter and sweets from Joanne, sweets from Huili's junior, Lucy's letter, food letter and polaroid from Jiawen, letter and chained bracelet from Huili, keychains from school, note and pen from Ms Lim, chained bracelet for myself. |
And to be remembered is a wonderful feeling. ^^
I said I wasn't affected.
That was the right answer to give, because it would serve no purpose to say otherwise. Getting apologies from you on his behalf definitely isn't what I'm looking out for. It was a socially correct answer and a half truth.
Since I know that I don't need his validation to be okay with myself, I can dismiss his words more readily.
Since I know that you don't share the same opinion, I can interpret it as a difference in perception and preferences.
Since I am not inclined to start World War III,
Since I'm aware that it's his tendency to voice such things,
Since I can acknowledge that I don't put much thought into my dressing, much effort into my appearance,
I can dismiss it.
I can brush it off.
But I can't say I won't think about it.
I wonder if you observed a break in my behavior. It bothers me that my attempt to radiate confident impassivity didn't turn out all well.
It was bordering on flight mode, bordering on defensive.
It was nice of you to stand up for me, but there really wasn't a point. I wasn't going to take his words to heart.
闹翻的话又怎样？赢了有用吗？
Unpleasantness all around- over something as small as ego?
It is not his words that get to me. It is not his criticism that gets to me. It's the implications, and the implications stem from my mind alone.
There are people out there who do simply speak their mind, who do not adhere to the social restrictions on "proper", polite behaviour. Their adherence to frankness, or a natural brusque manner...
Or was it that I really have been living in a bubble my whole life, sheltered from the unpleasant in the world?
A modern May Welland.
I have my ideals, and in them I really don't live in the same reality as others do.
In my ideal, there is liberty to value different things. There should be freedom to think different things.
But while I attempt to live out my ideal, I get reminded that not everyone works by this vision.
It is how it resonates with my own, deeper insecurities that it bothers me.
It made me wonder too, the effect of being surrounded by similar people. To require an iron hard defence, to depend on a strength that originates from within, to grip it securely enough to remind yourself every moment that you live for a greater purpose than being picked on.
Is it possible? Would self-esteem be shattered beyond repair? Would it bring about intangible effects on one's psyche?
To see the faults of the person throwing criticism at you, to credit its truth, to recognise its inadequacies, to realise that they are merely, like you, fallible humans-
"Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb."
Would it be asking too much of stoicism? Would it be asking too much of confidence? Would it still value reality as it should?
As he attempted to ironically follow your suggestion of saying something nice for a change, it struck me that he had nothing to say.
The shirt- it falls flat.
How I look better- taking into context everything else, he'd already given a valuation of the insignificance of that, hasn't he?
My personality-
It was the closest try for peacemaking. Unfortunate, therefore, that he has always only known but one facet of it. How would he have known my personality enough to make a comment that sounds sincere?
“If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party;"
Frankness does serve. It really does. It's precious because it comes so rarely.
A critical eye is important. It really is, because people with real knowledge and sense enough may be rare.
But to be continually caught up by appearance! It seems the formula for viewing things through narrow lenses, getting an incomplete picture of the environment, and by that a skewed human experience.
Yet in the end, who am I to talk? Me of all people- me, when I live in a bubble.
What binds? What divides?
What binds characters tend to be what the author approves of, what divides characters tend to be what the author critiques. After Mr Prince said that, it suddenly made me wonder why I didn't notice this dichotomy.
Isn't it apparent in real life too?
What binds, divides.
Things that served to bring people together will be the relationship's undoing, if the only link is that tie.
Perhaps I've been too myopic to say that people drift apart. Isn't it because the individual to individual relationship wasn't well developed enough for it to stand by itself, once the shared experience is removed.
What divides, binds.
Certainly that should be true too?
Things that divide people may sometimes be a starting point, to tackle the differences that stand in the way of successful relationships. With faith and perseverance enough, things that originally incapitated friendships or familial bonds could disperse into merely a distant memory.
What binds, what divides- in the end, it probably is insignificant.
What's the point of focusing on them, when it is the individuals that we're trying to build a relationship with?
Word usage and it's connotations...
When we're building a friendship, the focus should probably not be the common factor between us, but the nature of the friendship, the workings, the contributions... Isn't it?
When we're trying to keep a relationship, wouldn't the words be differences, or deviations in style and perspective? To consider it as what divides seem too fixed... As if a permanent gulf lies between.
My mind's wandering again.
But before I lament that we've drifted apart, squadmates, classmates, anyone- I should perhaps look to blame myself for building the friendship solely around the shared experience, and not really getting to know people as individuals.
If I think that way, it makes sense why I'm comfortable in a group, but sometimes fail terribly to sustain conversations otherwise.
How very contradictory... Considering I like deeper connections.
9 October
Everything seemed to finally go back into perspective.
By the contrast, implicit; by the contrast, across time.
Something in me registers it. Something stirs in my vault of memories, but I know now it's not my place to open them.
They never will need to be opened.
I realised that I'd been wandering towards the wrong train of thoughts. Conveniently forgetting the lesson Pip needed to learn- sometimes the past cannot be returned to just because you will it to. Time moved on.
The second time I saw you then, I was at better peace with the vault, that which has frequently lurked under the surface.
I sometimes entertain myself with the belief that people who scrutinise closer would be able to see. It would have accounted for why you seemed to always see- always get it right.
Would that opinion credit you too much, I wonder.
It seems so obvious to me- but what people find obvious I'm oblivious of.
Everything is back in perspective, believe me. My mind wandered in strange directions, my expressions in strange constructions- but I finally have sorted this out.
Since I can't defeat time, the next best would be to reconcile myself to the effects of time.
Something I've always resisted, but I find myself forced to learn, coerced into accepting.
This time though, I make my peace with the hand of time.
11 October
The littlest of things perhaps. But it made me remember the enthusiasm with which you said hi last time. It reminded me of a time that was much closer, much less controlled by arbitrary restraints.
It's a pity we've both grown up.
It's a pity we've drifted.
When I get caught up with looking inwards, the only effect of negating that thought is to make me wonder... If we were that far to begin with.
Arbitrary restraints.
It seems that I surround myself with them. They overlap sometimes in such inexplicable ways, so that I myself fear the being that I am.
Who'd I be to complain about the fearful complex world, when I myself am a culprit of complicating things?
The ability to reason is one I won't give up for the world. But I fear exploiting it.
I fear that I will twist black to white, twist truth to excuses, twist wrong to right.
I fear overconfidence, I fear forgetting who I am.
Who am I?
As we read that extract from "The second Mrs Tanqueray", I found my insecurities flooding back to me.
With some people, I seem to behave in one way... With others, some other way. For some I rouse myself, manage to become... foolish, hyper, chatty, stupid. For some I treat with near formality, smiles restricted thus likewise.
It makes me wonder. When I stand before the eyes of judgement, how deep am I in for it under the charge of hypocrisy?
For you, they are restricted even more. Intentionally.
I wonder if you noticed, realised, bothered. I wouldn't know.
One thing flits distinctly out of the haze that is my brain- one thing I know for sure.
I'm not a good person.
Everything considered... I'm not a good person.
Perhaps all I've had these while is the amazing ability to look the part.
"Propriety" is not my favourite word.
"Image" might on the other hand make it somewhere near.
Without it, I'm not sure what's left.
Yet another reminder... For how detestable I would be if my viewpoint were to recede into merely myself.
A brilliant example. The very real danger of over confidence in your beliefs, over emphasis on how people should respect you... Seeing and enlarging others' perceived faults, while being blind to your own.
While you seem to aspire to make people's lives more miserable. While we watch you degenerate. While you banish reason for your own brand of knowledge- how can you expect anything short of us banishing you from the herd?
We have a sense of self-preseverence too, you know.
I'm not sure I can convey how happy I am to actually finish reading it, although I admit that I skipped pages upon pages of historical reference that I did not understand.
I have to admit also that for a large half of the book, I was reading for the sake of knowing how Amelia Sedley got on. The most apt description I could give at short notice was that, for about 90% of the novel (which is saying a lot), she was the embodiment of the Victorian ideal for women. Constant, artlessness, caring, uncomplaining, mild.
I am glad though, that the author gave her and William Dobbin greater depth to their character by the end of the novel. They would be static otherwise, and perhaps too good to be true. For Amelia's characterisation, it was how being too extreme about her (actually good) beliefs closed her eyes to the truth, and closed her eyes to the line of action that would truly be considered just. For Major Dobbin, it was good that he finally stood up for himself. He would risk becoming a character with no sense of self otherwise.
And... I suppose Vanity Fair cannot be thought about without mention to Rebecca Crawley. In usual novels, we expect a protagonist and an antagonist- Rebecca is simultaneously the protagonist and antagonist. A very wholesome characterisation on her part, for her private and public personas are developed equally- who she could be, who she was perceived as by different groups... Rebecca is essentially antithetical to Amelia. More charming, witty, cunning, opportunistic... But hers is another struggle that Thackeray was focusing on.
If Amelia underlined the struggle of silent, proper, suffering women among respectable circles, Rebecca was the icon for getting on, for aspiring to reach the upper classes, someone who had to fight her way there. As an individual, then, she is an antagonist; as a depiction of the struggle for social mobility, she is a protagonist.
Count in the fair share of society that falls between these two extremes, and the very valid critiques made by the author (explicitly or through satire), Vanity Fair does give a good range of themes, character types, and concerns. Then again, it is a novel.
Finally, the quotes that caught my eyes are as follows.
The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days and nights, were forgotten, under one moment's influence of that familiar, irresistible smile.
To how many people can any one tell all? Who will be open where there is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who never can understand?
And she had misgivings and fears which she dared not acknowledge to herself, though she was always secretly brooding over them.
Her heart tried to persist in asserting that George Osborne was worthy and faithful to her, though she knew otherwise.
A long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of the other.
When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime.
How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer.
At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw.
Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while!
But he was content, so that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been the means of making her so.
What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf?
Did we know what our intimates and dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world that we should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind and a constant terror, that would be perfectly unbearable.
Dreadful doubt and anguish—prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable—followed the regiment. It was the women's tribute to the war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women.
Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun.
You and I, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one day: for have not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may fail: our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be taken by better and younger mimes—the chance of life roll away and leave us shattered and stranded.
I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not committed and persists in shielding the real culprit!
"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon; "do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied. "What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?"
"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome;
A small kindness from those she loved made that timid heart grateful.
In that long absence of ten years, the most selfish will think about home and early ties. Distance sanctifies both. Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness.
That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, "To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil."
You see, she has not had too much of that sort of existence as yet, and has not fallen in the way of means to educate her tastes or her intelligence. She has been domineered over hitherto by vulgar intellects. It is the lot of many a woman. And as every one of the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and silence—which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism— above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition. Thus, my dear and civilized reader, if you and I were to find ourselves this evening in a society of greengrocers, let us say, it is probable that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on the other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at your refined and polite tea-table, where everybody was saying witty things, and everybody of fashion and repute tearing her friends to pieces in the most delightful manner, it is possible that the stranger would not be very talkative and by no means interesting or interested.
And it must be remembered that this poor lady had never met a gentleman in her life until this present moment. Perhaps these are rarer personages than some of us think for Which of us can point out many such in his circle—men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated in its degree; whose want of meanness makes them simple; who can look the world honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are very well made, and a score who have excellent manners, and one or two happy beings who are what they call in the inner circles, and have shot into the very centre and bull's-eye of the fashion; but of gentlemen how many?
Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie?
This abattement and degradation did not take place all at once; it was brought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after many struggles to keep up—as a man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when he finds that struggling is in vain.
the weakest of all people will domineer over somebody
That unlucky word had undone the work of many a year—the long laborious edifice of a life of love and constancy—raised too upon what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices—a little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of hope—one word, and away flew the bird which he had been trying all his life to lure!
Emmy went up and embraced her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice of the Major, except to fling him an angry look—the most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever appeared in that poor little woman's face since she was born. But she had private reasons of her own, and was bent upon being angry with him.
She, too, had been awake all that night. She had been thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a hundred times before. A hundred times on the point of yielding, she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt was too much for her. She couldn't, in spite of his love and constancy and her own acknowledged regard, respect, and gratitude. What are benefits, what is constancy, or merit? One curl of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute. They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other women.
"It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued, "which moves you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good- natured, and have done your best, but you couldn't—you couldn't reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good-bye, Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both weary of it."
Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.
When a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son, beware of that traveller! He is, ten to one, an impostor.
That sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars.
"I knew it all along," William said; "but could I use that weapon against the poor fellow's memory?"
不能这样一直往回看，一直被影子拖累，一直背着以前的包袱。
It is high time to leave the past in the past where it belongs.
Past grief, triumphs, joy, relations, experiences... They build me as a person and help shape me into the being I am today.
But that fails to credit my present. I am also defined by my mind, my values, my thoughts, my being.
And that fails to credit the opportunities that the future holds. A future where my past and present can work together to allow me to better find myself... And to demonstrate the purpose for my existence.
If I continue to be bound down by the past, now, I will really look narrow minded.
I made another round around while people were leaving the school. With my experience of returning to primary school though, I should have realised that returning to school would hold limited impact, unless with the same ties and people.
The campus is the same, but changed. Changed enough to leave a jarring impression of what is lost.
I thought there would be a comfort in being alone.
Had I not found comfort previously? Being able to pour my extreme emotions into the whispering wind, being able to rejuvenate under the shade of the leaves swaying above me... Being alone was a solace.
But not today. The campus is too empty and too populated at the same time. And the individual who walked the paths she did previously is also changed.
I can only assume that the touch of nature regulates my emotions, but the touch of a crowd regulates my emptiness.
It makes me wonder yet again- who am I?
I seem able and happy to soak in the mood, by the side of people I feel comfortable with, in the company of people I care for. It seems effortless to smile as they smile, laugh as they laugh, responding with energy to things initiated.
For my squadmates, I love knowing that two years have not wrought too big a chasm that cannot be overcome. I love that feeling, of being all together again, happily, at long last.
Lucy said it was no wonder, being with fun people.
Fun. The shadows residing at the back of my mind reminds me: I don't know how to generate fun.
If there is a crowd, I know I can keep that mood up. Be boisterous, even.
I know that if there is an audience, I'll be able to keep up the bare minimum- the affection of energy.
As an individual, where does it land me?
On an individual level, I think I really don't know how to behave. Being sociable seems to run in some people's blood- for the things I say though, it seems to all fall flat.
"Passivity"- over the weekend, this word came up.
But what are you supposed to do when the knowledge of inadequacy prevents you from recreating an empty mockery of the energetic conversation that flows so naturally between some people?
What are you supposed to do when you therefore delight in listening, but can barely contribute to anyone else's satisfaction?
What can you do when it gives the wrong impression that you're not interested?
I know the kind of conversation I revel in- those that is of opinions, perspectives, knowledge, or those that are charged with emotional experience.
While it does not mean that I will be a satisfactory conversationalist, the resonance with my heart and mind necessarily awakens some degree of fervour.
A fervour otherwise absent when I'm to speak of things I realise with my eyes and ears. I usually don't take notice, or what I see usually doesn't impact me enough to stay in my mind's archive, waiting for me to relate it to another person.
Like what I said, I currently don't care enough about how my life plays out.
My musings move towards a close... But I suppose it has allowed me to note with chagrin how my identity, as before, is built on my surroundings.
Today, my value as an individual eludes me.
Tomorrow, perhaps, after I've dispelled my emptiness, I will remember that I'm an individual with dreams, aspirations, and my own values system.
I just hope that what the teachers say are right, such that I'll be able to maintain all these ties that have become more dear with time, even when we're separated by our various paths.
Losing everyone would be too great a pity.
