'Now, let me calmly consider the case in all its bearings, I said to
myself, drawing a chair to the window and sitting down with my elbows
resting on the sill. 'Suppose Wynne really did overhear the
altercation between my mother and my uncle, which seems scarcely
probable, has drink really so demoralised him, so brutalised him,
that for drink he would commit the crime of sacrilege? There are no
signs of his having sunk so low as that. But suppose the crime were
committed, what then? Do I really believe that the curse of my father
and of the Psalmist would fall upon Winifred's pure and innocent
head? Certainly not. I do not believe in the effect of curses at all.
I do not belief in any supernatural interference with the natural
laws of the universe.'
Ah! but this thought about the futility of the curse, about the folly
of my father's superstitions, brought me no comfort. I knew that,
brave as Winifred was as a child, she was, when confronting the
material world, very superstitious. I remembered that as a child,
whenever I said, 'What a happy day it has been!' she would not rest
until she had made me add, 'and shall have many more,' because of her
feeling of the prophetic power of words.
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