Candish, "that
if we once begin to give up things because their possibilities are not
realized, we shall soon end by having nothing left. Plenty of people do
not live up to the possibilities of marriage, but the fact is that the
trouble is with themselves. The blame that they lay on the institution
really belongs on their own shoulders."
"Yes," agreed Edith; "like everything else it comes back to a question
of egotism." "And egotism," added Helen, smiling, yet wistfully, "is
the supreme evil."
Mr. Candish nodded approvingly.
"I don't know," he said, "that a bachelor like myself has any right to
discuss marriage, except on general principles; but certainly, even
without taking the religious view of it, one can see that the very
objections brought against wedlock are reasons in its favor."
"Yes," Edith returned, but she moved uneasily in her chair, and Helen
divined that the subject was painful to her.
"The difficulty is," she said, with an air of dismissing the whole
subject, "that most people marry for the honeymoon and very few for the
whole life."
She fell to thinking in an absorbed mood which was not wholly free from
irritation, how constantly this question of marriage met one at every
turn, as if the whole fabric of life, social and ethical, depended
entirely upon this institution. She sighed a little impatiently,
looking into the fire with mournful eyes.
Pages:
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295