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He worked with that aggrieved persistence, as though calling on heaven to witness the injustice done him, which the sullen everywhere bring to their trivial tasks; and as he worked, his lips moved in unison with his hands to shape his petulant thoughts for his pleasure, for his mind rehearsed eternally the inequities that had been forced upon him—inequities which he must endure in silence, since he was one of the underprivileged ones of the world, the unfortunate son of an unfortunate sharecropper, the pathetic victim of an oppressive system, as everyone who knew anything at all admitted, and
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It seemed to her then that her child, as though sensing for the first time that some factor of body or spirit separated her from those around her, tried to conceal the difference by aping the values of others; but since there was nothing spontaneous in her heart to instruct her, she must, instead, consider, debate, experiment, and feel her way cautiously through the values and minds of her models.
You see, I have a reputation of being an eccentric—a great advantage in dealing with others, I assure you. People are afraid of eccentrics; they can never be sure which way they’ll jump, or what they’ll do next.
“You’re so attractive, Christine. But, of course, blondes do fade quickly. You have such exquisite taste in clothes, but I’m sure you have a great deal of money to buy them with. When I was a young girl, I always hoped I’d look like you, but, of course, I never did.”
“How can we know that our own concepts of good and evil concern God in the slightest? How can we be so sure He’d even understand our tests and definitions? Certainly there’s nothing in nature, in the cruel habits of animals, that should lead us to think He does.”
me? Is it that the eye finds what the mind is seeking?”
she regarded it as a positive wish concealed under a negative reaction.
as though her actions were merely the outward mechanics of an inward turbulence she could not so easily arrange.
