The manufacture of a variety of ingenious trifles now become useful by ministering to my own wants and those of others,--the share I took in Miss Mortimer's charitable employments,--hours of devotion and serious study, reading, and often writing abstracts of what I read,--left no portion of my time for weariness. But had I been deprived of all bodily employment, the very condition of my mind precluded ennui. I was full of one concern of overwhelming importance. At one time, the truth shone upon me, gladdening me to rapture with its brightness; at another, error darkened my sinking soul, and I was eager in my search for light. Alas! our infirmity loads with many a cloud the dawning even of that true light which 'shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' The natural warmth of my temper, and my long-confirmed habit of yielding to all its impulses, often hurried me into little superstitious austerities, needless scruples, and vehement disputes, which, had they been exposed to common eyes, would have drawn upon me the derision of some, and the suspicion of others; but fortunately Miss Mortimer had few visiters, and my foibles were little seen, except by one who could discover errors in religious judgment, without imputing them either to fanaticism or hypocrisy.
My altercations, for discourse in which passion is permitted to mingle cannot deserve the name of argument, were chiefly carried on with Sidney; who, from the time of his assistance to the Campbells, had become a frequent guest at Miss Mortimer's. His dispositions were amiable, his character unblemished; but his opinions upon some lesser points of doctrine differed widely from mine. This he happened one day accidentally to betray; and I, with the rashness which inclines us to fancy all lately-discovered truths to be of equal importance, combated what I considered as his fatal heresy. Sidney, with great good-humour, rather excited me to speak; perhaps for the same reason as he taught his dog to quarrel with him for his glove.
Miss Mortimer never took part in our disputations, not even by a look. 'How can you,' said I to her one day, when he had just left us, 'suffer such opinions to be advanced without contradiction?'