John Oliver Hobbes

“ He does not love the other woman."
"My dear Cynthia, you forget. You are the other woman—she is his wife."
"I don't believe that God thinks she is his wife!"
"People are so fond of quoting God, when the Law is inconvenient! And when God is inconvenient, they quote the Law."
"There is no law, either of God or man, to forbid my loving Godfrey. You may cut off your hand or pluck out your eye: but love is the very soul of you—you can't touch it."
"Dear! dear!" said Lady Theodosia; "if women once begin to talk about their souls they're done for. ”

“ Said Teresa, "because if I loved a man I would have no desire to lead him. I could only pray that I might not prove his stumbling-block, and that we might help each other to do right rightly. Life is so hard to live alone."
"Oh, if I only dared to be natural," exclaimed Lady Mallinger; "if I only dared to tell all I think, and feel, and know. If I could only drop this tedious gossiping and grinning! I am not tired of living, but I am tired of my body—of this mummy-case. When I was a child, I felt old; now I am a woman, I feel young. ”

“ Lady Theodosia ventured to say one day, when Cynthia seemed in a talking mood.
" How could I be disappointed in him?" said the bride; "is he a man who leads one to expect much?"
"Is he kind? " said Lady Theodosia.
Cynthia smiled. "He is manageable."
"Well," said her aunt, "that is something. I hope he is generous."
"There is Scotch blood in the family, you know," said Cynthia.
"Still, you don't regret the marriage? " said Lady Theodosia; "you don't think you could have done better? "
"I make it a rule never to regret anything," said Cynthia; "regret is a bore. ”

“ Wiche was uncertain how to reply, when she herself, brushing the tears from her cheeks, asked him a question.
"Why?" she said, "why are you not going to marry Lady Mallinger?"
"I want to tell you about that," he said. "I am afraid there is not time to tell the whole story now. But Lady Mallinger discovered that she had made a mistake, she loved some one else, and I—I have been such a fool, Teresa, such a fool! I do not know whether I love you or not. I only know that I hate my life when you are not near me!" ”

“ I am sure that the supreme happiness of a woman's life is to devote herself to the man who loves her: to be his friend, his ideal, his good angel!"
Teresa smiled bitterly. "And the supreme difficulty of a woman's life," she said, "is to find the man who desires such devotion, who has an ideal, who wants a good angel! The best of men only ask us to be for ever young and for ever pretty: let your conscience go to the dogs but keep your freshness. Virtue never yet atoned for wrinkles!"
"There I cannot agree with you," said Lady Mallinger. ”

“ At which moment, Lady Hyde-Bassett came in with some flowers for the invalid.
"Margaret," said Sophia, "if you had a son, would you rather see him a Cardinal or a Lord Chancellor? Because we were just saying——"
Wrath strode away to the window. And looking out, he saw a fair world. How wrong it was to be cynical! As if there was no such thing as earthly happiness. Away! away! ye philosophers of the mud-heap. The soul of man is a garden where, as he sows, so he shall reap. If ye would gather roses, do not sow rotten seeds. ”

“ Provence sat with his face half in shadow—there was something which reminded her of a portrait by Velasquez in the pose of his head and the light on his features. What she chose to call the artistic craving in her nature was satisfied. She could call him picturesque. Picturesque, and with a Future! She drew a sigh of relief, and under pretence of steadying a rose which was half-falling from its vase on a table close by him (for with her, even impulse was well-tempered with a sense of the effective) sat down by his side. ”

“ It is the music of the world."
"It is a pity that it goes so often out of tune!" said Lilian. "Oh," she added suddenly, "our life is on so small a scale: everything seems so petty. Are women only born to fall in love with men like Saville Rookes? Why do we do these things?"
"Because there is nothing else for us to do, I suppose," said Felicia.
"But think of all these clever women who paint pictures, and make speeches, and write for the papers, and sing, and act, and play. Ah, how grand it must be to have something serious to think of!" ”

“ He smiled, and was evidently fully alive to what the world called the cussedness of the divine Sophia: only he did not call it cussedness; it was to him the last magnificent touch to her colossal spirit.
"But when do you try her patience?" said Lady Hyde-Bassett. "If every woman of genius had such a husband! I do not wonder that she worships the ground you walk on: that is a secret which she cannot keep. Oh, when a man is unselfish, no woman—not even the best——can compare with him. Splendid! splendid! I have only known one man like you, and that was Sir Benjamin." ”

“ Provence rose from his chair and began to pace the floor.
"If I could tell you what I meant by happiness," he said, "I should not want it. I have no pretty talent for definitions. There are some men, I know, who can analyze their first love and wonder with Hume if their passion is the appetite for generation sandwiched between the appreciation for beauty and a generous kindness. They can reduce their God to a diagram and their emotions to a system. If that is philosophy, I have not the first makings of a philosopher. But I know this: I cannot be happy merely because I am not unhappy. ”

“ You may tell me that love is stronger than death—than destruction—than the world. You will soon see that it is not stronger than scandal. Your love will bring him nothing but evil. You will be his stumbling-block."
"If I thought that, I would kill myself," said Cynthia.
Lady Theodosia waved her hand impatiently. " I thought you prided yourself on your courage. Meet your folly and conquer it. You will tell me that Godfrey is a man not easily influenced; that he of his own free will loved you, and always will love you; that he never has loved and never will love any one else. ”

“ Eliza sighed, but drifted towards the volume. Literature was still her friend.
"How I should like to paint her as St. Martha," said Wrath, in a low voice, to Lady Hyde-Bassett; "she has just that expression of kind, yet terrible energy St. Martha must have had!"
"How a love affair would improve her!" said Margaret; "every woman should have at least one love affair."
"But she is a nice creature," said Wrath. "I am very fond of her. She is a good but inaccessible angel." ”

“ A woman who is really living an immoral life always feels, like a condemned criminal, that the verdict is, if hard to bear, certainly just. But to Sophia, conscious of her innocence and only too proud to be the wife of the man she loved and honoured above all others, the mud pellets aimed at her reputation, stuck like knives in her heart. That she was suffering for an absurd reason has nothing to do with it: death in grotesque circumstances is none the less death, and the martyr to a fool's cause is still a martyr. ”

“ There is no peace for me this side of the grave."
"What does Lady Warcop suggest? " said Waddilove. "What are her wishes in the matter?"
"God knows!" said Sir Sidney. "If I knew what she wanted we might come to some understanding. But one moment she says one thing and the next another. My health will not bear it much longer. What do you advise me to do in the meantime?"
"You must be firm," said Waddilove.
"Impossible; quite impossible. Whenever I speak firmly she begins to cry. You see, she is a gentle, sweet-tempered sort of woman by nature. One does not like to be brutal." ”

“ Emily did not hear. She was listening to the echo of Sacheverell's footsteps as it grew fainter and finally ceased.
"I believe you rather like him," said Sir Richard, jealously.
"He was interesting. He has made me forget three headaches!"
"Yes? A man may give his whole life to a woman, and it won't mean so much to her as if he had once jawed her out of neuralgia!"
"And a woman," said Emily, "may give her soul for a man, and he won't think so much of her as if—she had jilted him for somebody else."
Sir Richard laughed. "We must not take human nature too seriously! ”

“ It explains everything."
"But," said De Boys, "we are both young: we can never seem children to each other. We both know that we are responsible beings, that we are masters of our fate: that we are under the law of liberty."
"Masters of our fate," repeated Sophia; "do you believe that?"
"How can I disbelieve it," he said, "when I live and have the evidence of each day to convince me."
Sophia turned her face towards him. "Tell me," she said, "what I must do. I am tired of thinking. The world seems so unreal sometimes, and words and people and things lose all meaning. ”

“ Lady Mallinger brushed the echo of these words from her ear: she would not believe that they had ever been uttered. "This is what comes," she thought, "of telling a man the truth: he flies!"
"You may have made a mistake," she replied, "but I have said nothing to you which I could ever wish to unsay. Saville told me this morning that men may fall in love dozens of times, but that each experience is new. They can only love once one way. This is true of women also. And it all comes to this: love is precisely the same kind of emotion as religion. ”

“ I fear I am growing cynical. I am beginning to agree with many of your views on the soul, and death, and marriage, and things of that order!"
"Ah! never trust a man's opinion on any subject until he has been in love," said Wiche. "Love is the only thing which can make life as clear as noon-day."
"Then I suppose you still find it dark and perplexing! Dear me! how idly I talk. I meant to say— but would it be impertinent? I was only thinking that a day, an hour, perhaps a few words might make all the difference in your ideas!" ”

“ I am very sorry for Sophia Jenyns, and more sorry for him; but I think they should either be frank, or separate. If they think they are wrong, they should bid each other good-bye, but if they feel they are right, they should have the courage of their opinion. I could respect them then, although I might disagree with their conscience. As it is—well, they evidently know they are doing wrong, since they dare not be candid. And they must be wretched! He is far too honest a man not to be miserable in a false position. ”

“ Godfrey. Poor dear old Godfrey—hardly! He's an awfully good sort, but really—you know—he's got no more poetry about him than—than a whale."
"You shall not make me laugh!" and then she began a series of rather musical giggles. George noticed that she had a dimple in her cheek.
"You must admit it's the truth," he said; "he is a stick, isn't he? Bless him!"
"How can you? He's a kind, excellent husband—mama says so." At this she laughed till the tears came. A cold-blooded observer would have said she was inclined to be hysterical.
"I like to see a man with some passion about him," said George. ”

“ She was wishing that his eyes were dark and earnest—like Sacheverell's: that his face had the nobility of Sacheverell's—that he was Sacheverell.
"Don't dream about me, Emily," said Sir Richard; "that sort of ambition is called dreaming. I shall only grieve you when you wake up. I live to amuse myself. I think life is the most lively thing going. I want to enjoy every hour of it. But I must enjoy it my way. And it is such a different way from yours—so very, very different. If you care for me ever so little, let it be for me as I am. I should always be jealous of the imaginary me. ”

“ Poor child! a stranger in her own father's house! But the world was a cruel place, and she, for her part, was sick and tired of it. If it were not for Teresa, who needed a mother's care, she was by no means sure that she might not seek a speedy way out of it. Suicide, of course, was wicked, but God was never hard on women. He understood them: men did not....Was that the bell?
"Go and meet her," said Blanche. "Try and look affectionate. I want the poor little thing to think we are glad to see her. As for me, I feel too ill and extraordinary to move." ”

“ Her sense of what was just and meet told her that it only remained now to call her soul into her eyes, gaze mournfully at Wiche, and leave him. Saville after all loved her the best.
Women like Lady Mallinger have to die young in order to be understood: then—and then not always—some onlooker more discerning than the others will see in the cold body some trace of a fiery spirit too ardent and too restless for mortality. Alas! poor soul. Seeking the highest, best, most beautiful, and purest—and finding a Saville Rookes. ”

“ She liked Provence, and where she liked she could—at a pinch—be loyal. "Cynthia shall not make a fool of him, if I can help it," she said to herself, with a vicious snap of her teeth. "She is altogether too self-confident. She would be much improved by an occasional failure. She is too used to success." If the jealousy, the natural jealousy of a woman who had outlived her own days of desperate flirtation, added a zest to her purpose, the purpose itself was none the less a kind one so far as her intentions went and Provence was concerned. ”

“ Her white face—her slight form—it was all so childish and pathetic. "The artistic profession is the hardest in the world for a woman—in fact, any artistic profession is hard for anybody," he said. "Art means labour—hard, ceaseless, unsatisfying labour. Her service is work, and her reward—the strength for more work."
"I have drawn ever since I can remember," said Anna; "it came to me like speaking. When I was old enough I studied hard. I made up my mind that painting was to be my work in life. 'Tis no sin, you know, to follow one's vocation. ”

“ I was only too willing to be fooled."
"Willing!" cried Teresa. "Where is your spirit? How weak a man is, after all! What a mercy that she cannot hear you: it would make her even vainer than she is by nature."
"I fear we are growing too old and prosaic," said Wiche, bitterly; "no wonder these young people try to rouse us."
"Sidney!...Do I seem old?" ”

“ I got a fellow to explain it to me."
"I should have hated that husband," said Cynthia.
"How I should respect a man who had the strength of character to say, 'Cynthia, if there is anything in your style, I don't admire it. You are too tall, and I don't like the colour of your hair. However—' and so on. That would be treating me like a rational being."
"My experience of women is—" said Edward; and then he blushed. "I mean," he said, "all women like to be appreciated. Anyhow," he added, desperately, "if a woman is awfully beautiful, I don't see any harm in telling her so." ”

“ I should die of respect for her."
"And what if she were too much devil?"
"I should love her horribly," said Provence. "That is the worst of devils—they are so entirely adorable. I don't say I should be particularly anxious to make one the mother of my children; and that I know is the amiable and perfectly correct ambition of the average young man averagely enamoured. But even were I so minded—which the gods forbid—I doubt extremely whether a devil would appreciate the kind intention. There is nothing remarkably exhilarating in the prospect of a large family." ”