“So far from murmuring against the appointment, I have felt exceedingly impatient at not being permitted to enter upon my work at once; and this is probably an evidence that I am not prepared for it.  But it is hard for me to be and to do nothing.  My restless, ambitious temper, so different from dear sister’s, craves high duties and high attainments, and I have at times thought that this ambition was a motive to me to do my duty and submit my will.  The hope of attaining to great eminence in the divine life has often prompted me to give up in little things, to bend to existing circumstances, to be willing for the time to be trampled upon.  These are my temptations.  For a long time it seemed to me I did everything from a hope of applause.  I could not even write in my diary without a feeling that I was doing it in the hope that it would one day meet the eye of the public.  Last winter I wrote more freely in it, and am still permitted to do so.  Very often, when thinking of my useless state at present, something of disappointment is felt that I am as nothing, and this language has been presented with force, ‘Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not.’”

CHAPTER VII.

At this time of her life, ere a single sorrow had thrown its shadow across her heart, and all her tears were shed for other’s woes, we see very distinctly Angelina’s peculiar characteristics.  Her conscientiousness and her pride are especially conspicuous.  The former, with its attendant sacrifices at the shrine of religious principle, had the effect of silencing criticism after a while, and inspiring a respect which touched upon veneration.  One of her sisters, in referring to this, says:—­

“Though we considered her views entirely irrational, yet so absolute was her sense of duty, her superiority to public sentiment, and her moral courage, that she seemed to us almost like one inspired, and we all came to look upon her with a feeling of awe.”

Of her pride—­“that stumbling block,” as she calls it, to Christian meekness—­she herself writes:—­

“My pride is my bane.  In examining myself, I blush to confess this fault, so great do I find its proportions.  I am all pride, and I fear I am even proud of my pride.”

But hers was not the pride that includes personal vanity or the desire for the applause of the multitude, for of these two elements few ever had less; neither was there any haughtiness in it, only the dignity which comes from the conscious possession of rare advantages, joined to the desire to use them to the glory of something better than self.  Still it was pride, and, in her eyes, sinful, and called for all her efforts to subdue its manifestations.  It especially troubled her whenever she entered into any argument or discussion, both of which she was rather fond of inviting.  She knew full well her intellectual power, and thoroughly enjoyed its exercise.