Kate Chopin

“ She flushed, and hesitated, but finally answered him bravely, “It was when – when you cared so much for that Kitty Beaton.”
Astonishment for a moment deprived him of speech.
“But Eleanor! In the name of reason! It isn’t possible!”
“I know all you would say,” she replied, “I have been over the whole ground myself, over and over, but it is useless. I have found that there are certain things which a woman can’t philosophize about, any more than she can about death when it touches that which is near to her.” ”

“ The cause of that abandonment of grief will never be learned unless she chooses to disclose it herself.
When Faraday first folded his wife in his arms he saw but the Eleanor of his constant dreams. But he soon began to perceive how more beautiful she had grown; with a richness of coloring and fullness of health that Plymdale had never been able to bestow. And the object of her stay in Paris was gaining fast to accomplishment, for she had already acquired a knowledge of French that would not require much longer to perfect. ”

“ That first revolt was like the unwilling protest of the flesh against the surgeon’s knife before a man has steeled himself to its endurance.
Every thing came back to him from their short, common past – their dreams, their large intentions for the shaping of their lives. Here was the first test, and should he be the one to cry out, “I cannot endure it.”
When he returned to the pension, Eleanor was impatiently waiting for him in the entry, radiant with gladness at his coming. ”

“ She was that rara avis, a logical woman – something which Faraday had not encountered in his life before. True, he was not hoary with age. At 30 the types of women he had met with were not legion; but he felt safe in doubting that the hedges of the future would grow logical women for him, more than they had borne such prodigies in the past.
He found Eleanor ready to take broad views of life and humanity; able to grasp a question and anticipate conclusions by a quick intuition which he himself reached by the slower, consecutive steps of reason. ”

“ Faraday thought little of this feeling (and so should we if it were not outspoken) .
In writing one day to his wife, with the cold-blooded impartiality of choosing a subject which he thought of neither more nor less prominence than the next, he descanted at some length upon the interesting emotions which Miss Kitty’s pretty femininity aroused in him.
If he had given serious thought to the expediency of touching upon such a theme with one’s wife, he still would not have been deterred. Was not Eleanor’s large comprehensiveness far above the littleness of ordinary women? ”

“ Faraday appreciated the need of offering to his wife advantages for culture which had been of impossible attainment during her girlhood.
Marriage, which marks too often the closing period of a woman’s intellectual existence, was to be in her case the open portal through which she might seek the embellishments that her strong, graceful mentality deserved.
An urgent desire with Eleanor was to acquire a thorough speaking knowledge of the French language. They agreed that a lengthy sojourn in Paris could be the only practical and reliable means of accomplishing such an end. ”

“ Had stood stoically enough the questionable distinction of being relegated to a place amid that large and ill-assorted family of “cranks,” feeling the discomfit and attending opprobrium to be far outbalanced by the satisfying consciousness of roaming the heights of free thought, and tasting the sweets of a spiritual emancipation.
The closing act of Eleanor’s young ladyhood, when she chose to be married without pre-announcement, without the paraphernalia of accessories so dear to a curious public – had been in keeping with previous methods distinguishing her career. ”

“ And so, in May, they were married, and in September we find Eleanor established in the pension of the old couple Clairegobeau and comfortably ensconced in her pretty room that opened on to the Rue Rivoli, her heart full of sweet memories that were to cheer her coming solitude.
On the wall, looking always down at her with his quiet, kind glance, hung the portrait of her husband. Beneath it stood the fanciful little desk at which she hoped to spend many happy hours. ”

“ When she was near him the velvet smoothness of her pink cheeks stirred him with a feeling that could have found satisfying expression in a kiss.
It is idle to suppose that even the most exemplary men go through life with their eyes closed to woman’s beauty and their senses steeled against its charm. ”

“ Each was to remain a free integral of humanity, responsible to no dominating exactions of so-called marriage laws. And the element that was to make possible such a union was trust in each other’s love, honor, courtesy, tempered by the reserving clause of readiness to meet the consequences of reciprocal liberty. ”

“ In entering upon their new life they decided to be governed by no precedential methods. Marriage was to be a form, that while fixing legally their relation to each other, was in no wise to touch the individuality of either ”