Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1878 - Inland voyage

204 -^^^ Inland Voyage.
chair to chair, from altar to altar, circumnavi-
gating the church. To each shrine, she dedi-
cated an equal number of beads and an equal
length of time. Like a prudent capitalist with
a somewhat cynical view of the commercial
prospect, she desired to place her supplications
in a great variety of heavenly securities. She
would risk nothing on the credit of any single
intercessor. Out of the whole company of saints
and angels, not one but was to suppose himself
her champion elect against the Great Assizes !
I could only think of it as a dull, transparent
jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief
She was as dead an old woman as ever I
saw ; no more than bone and parchment,
curiously put together. Her eyes, with which
she interrogated mine, were vacant of sense.
It depends on what you call seeing, whether
you might not call her blind. Perhaps she had
known love : perhaps borne children, suckled