painting idea

'I can do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and
acknowledge that,' I meditated,- 'that is, if life be spared me. But I
feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian
sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to die,
he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who
gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I
should leave a loved but empty land- Mr. Rochester is not there; and
if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to
live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from
day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in
circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John
once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one
lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious
man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime
results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn
affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes- and yet
I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to
India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between