Paris and Rome; and, more-over, he did not scruple to tell me that there were ladies in both places that would tear his eyes out if they happened to meet him with me.
Of course I was vexed at all this; but still it was less the disappointment to myself that annoyed me, than the disappointment in him, and the trouble I was at to frame excuses to my friends for having seen and observed so little, without imputing one particle of blame to my companion. But when we got home—to my new, delightful home—I was so happy and he was so kind that I freely forgave him all; and I was beginning to think my lot too happy, and my husband actually too good for me, if not too good for this world, when, on the second Sunday after our arrival, he shocked and horrified me by another instance of his unreasonable exaction. We were walking home from the morning service, for it was a fine frosty day, and as we are so near the church, I had requested the carriage should not be used.
‘Helen,’ said he, with unusual gravity, ‘I am not quite satisfied with you.’
I desired to know what was wrong.
‘But will you promise to reform if I tell you?’
‘Yes, if I can, and without offending a higher authority.’
‘Ah! there it is, you see: you don’t love me with all your heart.’
‘I don’t understand you, Arthur (at least I hope I don’t): pray tell me what I have done or said amiss.’
‘It is nothing you have done or said; it is something that you are—you are too religious. Now I like a woman to be religious, and I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman’s religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies.’
‘And am I above all human sympathies?’ said I.
‘No, darling; but you are making more progress towards that saintly condition than I like; for all these two hours I have been thinking of you and wanting to catch your eye, and you were so absorbed in your devotions that you had not even a glance to spare for me—I declare it is enough to make one jealous of one’s Maker—which is very wrong, you know; so don’t excite such wicked passions again, for my soul’s sake.’
‘I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,’ I answered, ‘and not one atom more of it to you than He allows. What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute possession of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy—and yourself among the rest—if you are a blessing, which I am half inclined to doubt.’
‘Don’t be so hard upon me, Helen; and don’t pinch my arm so: you are squeezing your fingers into the bone.’
‘Arthur,’ continued I, relaxing my hold of his arm, ‘you don’t love me half as much as I do you; and yet, if you loved me far less than you do, I would not complain, provided you loved your Maker more. I should rejoice to see you at any time so deeply absorbed in your devotions that you had not a single thought to spare for me. But, indeed, I should lose nothing by the change, for the more you loved your God the more deep and pure and true would be your love to me.’
At this he only laughed and kissed my hand, calling me a sweet enthusiast. Then taking off his hat, he added: ‘But look here, Helen—what can a man do with such a head as this?’
The head looked right enough, but when he placed my hand on the top of it, it sunk in a bed of curls, rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle.
‘You see I was not made to be a saint,’ said he, laughing, ‘If God meant me to be religious, why didn’t He give me a proper organ of veneration?’
‘You are like the servant,’ I replied, ‘who, instead of employing his one talent in his master’s service, restored it to him unimproved, alleging, as an excuse, that he knew him “to be a hard man, reaping where he had not sown, and gathering where he had not strawed.” Of him to whom less is given, less will be required, but our utmost exertions are required of us all. You are not without the capacity of veneration, and faith and hope, and conscience and reason, and every other requisite to a Christian’s character, if you choose to employ them; but all our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil, till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame. But you have talents, Arthur—natural endowments both of heart and mind and temper, such as many a better Christian would be glad to possess, if you would only employ them in God’s service. I should never expect to see you a devotee, but it is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing to be a happy, merry-hearted man.’
‘You speak like an oracle, Helen, and all you say is indisputably true; but listen here: I am hungry, and I see before me a good substantial dinner; I am told that if I abstain from this to-day I shall have a sumptuous feast to-morrow, consisting of all manner of dainties and delicacies. Now, in the first place, I should be loth to wait till to-morrow when I have the means of appeasing my hunger already before me: in the second place, the solid viands of to-day are more to my taste than the dainties that are promised me; in the third place, I don’t see to-morrow’s banquet, and how can I tell that it is not all a fable, got up by the greasy-faced fellow that is advising me to abstain in order that he may have all the good victuals to himself? in the fourth place, this table must be spread for somebody, and, as Solomon says, “Who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto more than I?” and finally, with your leave, I’ll sit down and satisfy my cravings of to-day, and leave to-morrow to shift for itself—who knows but what I may secure both this and that?’
‘But you are not required to abstain from the substantial dinner of to-day: you are only advised to partake of these coarser viands in such moderation as not to incapacitate you from enjoying the choicer banquet of to-morrow. If, regardless of that counsel, you choose to make a beast of yourself now, and over-eat and over-drink yourself till you turn the good victuals into poison, who is to blame if, hereafter, while you are suffering the torments of yesterday’s gluttony and drunkenness, you see more temperate men sitting down to enjoy themselves at that splendid entertainment which you are unable to taste?’
‘Most true, my patron saint; but again, our friend Solomon says, “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink, and to be merry.”’
‘And again,’ returned I, ‘he says, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”’
‘Well, but, Helen, I’m sure I’ve been very good these last few weeks. What have you seen amiss in me, and what would you have me to do?’
‘Nothing more than you do, Arthur: your actions are all right so far; but I would have your thoughts changed; I would have you to fortify yourself against temptation, and not to call evil good, and good evil; I should wish you to think more deeply, to look further, and aim higher than you do.’
CHAPTER XXIV
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MARCH 25TH.—ARTHUR is getting tired—not of me, I trust, but of the idle,
