Courage of the active sort she'd always
had. The way she went up to North End Hall and wrested a job that didn't
strictly exist, from John Galbraith, was an example of it. When it was a
question of blazing up and doing something, she had rightly counted on
herself not to fail. This was what she'd foreseen when she promised
Portia that she would fight for the big thing.
But that part of the battle of life had to consist just in doing
nothing, enduring with a stiff mouth and clenched hands assaults that
couldn't be replied to, was a fact she hadn't foreseen. What a child she
had always been! Rodney, Portia, everybody who amounted to anything,
must have learned that lesson of sheer endurance long ago.
The queerly incredible quality of the lighted half of her life--the half
that John Galbraith's will galvanized into motion--prevented any
afterglow from illuminating and making tolerable the dark half. No
achievement of her days--not even teaching the sextette to talk--had the
power to give her, in her nights, a sense of progress, or to lessen the
necessity for that sheer dumb endurance which was the only weapon she
had.
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