Now she saw that genius could accomplish
without effort or trouble what no amount of homely energy could effect,
and a new horizon was unveiled to her. But on the boy it did not seem to
have the right result. He might have learned to extend his sympathy to a
nature so dumb and plodding; and this coldness of his called down a
rebuke of what seemed almost undue sternness from one of our teachers.
It was not given in my presence, but the boy, bewildered by the severity
which he did not anticipate, coupled indeed with a hint that he must be
prepared, if he could not exhibit a more elastic sympathy, to have his
course suspended in favour of some more simple discipline, told me the
whole matter. "What am I to do?" he said. "I cannot care for Barbara;
her whole nature upsets me and revolts me. I know she is very good and
all that, but I simply am not myself when she is by; it is like taking a
run with a tortoise!"
"Well," I said, "no one expects you to give up all your time to taking
tortoises for runs; but I suppose that tortoises have their rights, and
must not be jerked along on their backs, like a sledge.
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