Theodore Winthrop

“ He has been walking over others all his life, trampling them if they lifted up their heads. But a selfish man gets himself sent first to Coventry, and then, if he does not mend, to St. Helena. Denman, a great merchant by inheritance, has gained money-power at the cost of moral weight. Our best men look coldly on him. He knows it, and grasps at bigger wealth to crush criticism. It is the old story, — vaulting ambition, the Russian campaign. Denman’s gigantic schemes are the terror, the wonder, and the admiration of Wall Street. ”

“ Ah, yes! as the ‘marriage of true minds’ alone gives fragrance and ripeness. I have missed the harvest, I escaped the blight. Denman, rich and handsome, with life clear before him, came back from Europe. Wealth had illusions for Emma Page. ”

“ You massacre the Innocents because they are guilty. This is the old dead dogma of original sin, redivivus and rampant.”
“No; the dogma is dead, and science handles the facts without the trammels of an impious theory. Life cures, and Death renews. But Life should be a feast, not a medicine.
“Emma’s birth,” he continued, “transformed Mrs. Denman. For a year she was a faithful mother.
“Denman did not like his wife so well in this capacity. They diverged widely. To be handsome for him and showy for the public was his notion of Mrs. Denman’s office. ”