Agape love

“ Agatha followed her husband to the hall. He was grave with his leave-taking of Anne Valery, who had looked less cheerful, and had breathed rather than spoken the last “God bless you!—Come back soon.” The young man did not again say, even to himself, anything about his journey being “hard.”
But as he stood in the hall with his wife, he lingered. Youth is youth, and love is love, and each seems so real—life's only reality while it lasts. No human being, while drinking the magic cup, ever looks or listens to those who have drank, and set it down empty. ”

“ A neat house and a creditable dinner every day go more to his heart than all the sentimental devotion you can give. It's all very well for a man in love to live upon roses and posies, and kisses and blisses, but after he is married he dearly likes to be comfortable.”
Agatha was silent for a moment, hardly venturing to believe, and yet afraid she must. “I heard Miss Valery once say that no man's love after marriage is exactly as it was before it; that the thing attained soon loses its preciousness, and that the wife has to assume a new character, and win another kind of love. ”

“ Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, Mother Bunch had not dared to look on Agricola; but his words expressed so deep a conviction, the tones of his voice revealed so tender an emotion, that the poor creature felt her shame gradually diminish, particularly when Agricola added, with rising animation: “Be satisfied, my sweet, my noble Magdalen; I will be worthy of this love. Believe me, it shall yet cause you as much happiness as it has occasioned tears. Why should this love be a motive for estrangement, confusion, fear? For what is love, in the sense in which it is held by your generous heart? ”

“ In this strait, strangely, temptingly sweet seemed to come the words, “I love you; no man will ever love you better than I.”
To one whose heart is altogether free, the knowledge of being deeply loved, and by a man whose attachment would do honour to any woman, is a thought so soothing, so alluring, that from it spring half the marriages—not strictly love-marriages—which take place in the world; sometimes, though not always, ending in real happiness.
Agatha began to consider that it would seem very odd if she wrote to Mr. Harper, in his home, among his family. ”

“ It was a strange thing, but yet human nature, that her husband's fits of passionate tenderness only seemed to make her own feelings grow calm. Whether it was the shyness of her girlhood, or the variableness of a love not spontaneous but slowly responsive, or whether—a feeling wrong, yet alas! wondrously natural—it was the mere wilfulness of a woman who knows herself to be infinitely beloved, certain it was that Agatha appeared not quite the same as a few hours before. Affectionate still, and happy, happier than it is the nature of deep love to be ”

“ Anne bent down from her serenity to notice and soothe the wayward child.
“Poor little thing, she wants taking care of as much as anybody. When will her husband come home?”
“Never—never!” cried Agatha, hardly knowing what she said. “I shall lose him—you—all.”
Miss Valery smiled—the composed smile of one who ascending a mountain, sees the lowland mazes around laid out distinct and clear, and looks over them to their ending.
“Yes, my child, he will come back. Absence breaks slender ties, but it rivets strong ones. Have faith in him. People like him, if they once love, love always. ”

“ Nay, nay, Agatha, it is not so. To-day hath this man's eyes been a candle to me, that I may see myself truly; and I know that though I am a queen and not uncomely, I am but coarse and little-minded. I rage in my household when the whim takes me, and I am hot-headed, and masterful, and slothful, and should belike be untrue if there were any force to drive me thereto. And I suffer my husband to go after other women, and this new thrall is especial, so that I may take my pleasure unstayed with other men whom I love not greatly. ”

“ Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen. The subject came home to her. “Will Eulalie be one of these?”
“I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will never know what is real love.”
“Tell me, what is that sort of love—the right love—which one ought to bring to one's husband?”
Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. “Are you seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?”
“Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'”
“Almost every human being loves in a different way.” ”

“ The midges bit him, the dancing gnats tried to fly into his mouth, and all the spring around him seemed to grow more lovely and alive; the songs of the cuckoos and the blackbirds, the laughter of the yaflies, the level-slanting sunlight, the apple blossom which had crowned her head! He got up from the old trunk and strode out of the orchard, wanting space, an open sky, to get on terms with these new sensations. He made for the moor, and from an ash tree in the hedge a magpie flew out to herald him.
Of man—at any age from five years on—who can say he has never been in love? ”

“ Every one of us must bear our own burden; and we can bear it, if we love one another.”
Agatha's lips were set together.
“If,” continued Anne, firmly—“If we love any one with sincerity and faithfulness, we are sure to reap our reward some time. ”

“ Why should he desire what he already possesses?
“Married to him—oh, God!—the dream is mad as ineffable. Are not such thoughts of celestial sweetness—which include all sentiments from sisterly to maternal love—forbidden to me, on pain of ridicule as distressing as if I wore dresses and ornaments, that my ugliness and deformity would render absurd? I wonder, if I were now plunged into the most cruel distress, whether I should suffer as much as I do, on hearing of Agricola’s intended marriage? ”

“ Agatha, for whom I had dared and suffered so much—even she had become indifferent to my destiny: it was indeed time to die! But I did her wrong; sorrow had broken her heart, and repeated scenes of horror had subdued and weakened her spirit. With the feeling common to her sex, she sought consolation only in religion, and thought that to reconcile herself with Heaven was all that was left her now: love had fled with every other human passion, and far from regarding death as an evil, she looked upon it as a passport to bliss, and was more ready to rejoice at than deprecate my fate. ”

“ At the moment, Agatha would have given her whole future life—nay, her immortal soul—to cling for one minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him—with the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or estrange.
Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there was no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing words which are all that people can say, without being those “miserable comforters” who only torture the more. ”

“ No one rejoiced more than did Agatha, that the heavenly messengers had led Mary back.
Their teacher said that her school was a little garden of flowers, which she was rearing for heaven. But Agatha was the most innocent flower there, and ready to bloom in the garden of paradise. The kind heavenly guides thought her too pure for earth, and they would fain have her companionship in their purer regions. So they bore her away on wings of love to their heavenly home.
May every Sabbath school scholar be, like Agatha, led by celestial spirits. ”

“ If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still a free heart, it is that quiet, unobtrusive, proudly-silent love which, giving all, exacts nothing. Agatha's smile had in it something even of shy tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper. And when, after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite naturally as it were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt a strange sense of calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed husband upon whom she leant. ”

“ Agapit, who possessed a warm heart, an ardent imagination, and a lively regard for the other sex, was at present without a love-affair of his own, and his mind was therefore free to dwell on the troubles of Rose and Vesper. All night long he dreamed of lovers. They haunted him, tortured him with their griefs, misunderstandings, and afflictions, and, rather glad than sorry to awake from his disturbed sleep, he lifted his shaggy head from the pillow early in the morning and, vehemently shaking it, muttered, "The devil himself is in those who make love." ”

“ Agathon, the young tragic poet, then takes up the parable. Love is the best and fairest of the gods, walking in soft places, with a grace that is all his own, and nestling among the flowers of beauty. Again. Love is
"the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; careful of the good, uncareful of the evil. ”

“ Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne Valery.
There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself. It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love—in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. ”

“ Tho' now, perhaps, those childish airs you prize,
Lovers and husbands see with diff'rent eyes.
A rising passion will new charms create;
A falling seeks new causes for its hate.
Wisely the bee, while teeming summer blooms,
Thinks of the dearth which with cold winter glooms,
So thou should'st, in thy love's serener time,
When passion reigns, and Flora's in her prime,
Think of that winter which must sure ensue,
When she shall have no charms, no fondness you. ”

“ Harper caught her in his arms.
“Oh, Agatha, forgive me!—Have patience with me, and we may still be happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a little—a very little—as much as you can.” ”

“ What must I do, Miss Valery?”
Anne looked from one to the other—Nathanael, who, as was his habit in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard—and Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet half repentant all the while. “What must you do? You must try to learn the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she loves—to have faith in him.”
“We women,” she continued softly, “the very best and wisest of us, cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only love him. ”

“ For a long time they remained thus, clasped together, so motionless that the little robin of the arbutus-trees hopped on to a bough near them and began a song.
“We must go in now,” said Agatha.
“Ay; we must not forget Anne, or anybody. One can do so much good when one is happy!”
“I feel so.” She rose, hanging on his arm, but trembling still, almost frightened by the insanity of his joy, whirled dizzily in the torrent of his overwhelming love. ”

“ Agatha blushed slightly as she answered:
“He has no right whatever to ask the question; nor if I have a favoured lover, should it be any ground of complaint to him. But to you, Henri, if you wish a promise from me on the subject, I will readily and willingly promise, that I will receive no man’s love, and, far as I can master my own heart, I will myself entertain no passion without your sanction: and you, dear brother, you shall make me a return for my confidence; you shall ask me to marry no man whom I cannot love.” ”

“ If any love us, and we believe it and trust them, they are sure to come out clear from all clouds, our own beloved, true to the end. Therefore, Agatha, above all blessings, may God bless you with love! May you be happy in your husband, and make him happy! May you live to see your home merry and full—not silent!—may you die among your children and your own people—not alone!”
The sudden solemnity of this blessing, enhanced by the feebleness of the voice that uttered it, awoke strange emotions in Agatha. She threw herself on her knees by the armchair, where Anne lay back—now faint and pale. ”

“ Does that fair bosom control no emotion? Is that lovely face, so exquisitely pale, a true index of the spirit within? Oh! Agatha! it cannot be; while my own heart is so torn with love; while I feel my own pulses beat so strongly; while my own brain burns so fiercely, I cannot believe that your bosom is a stranger to all emotion! Some passion akin to humanity must make you feel that you are not all divine! ”

“ I applaud, dear Agathon, the beginning of your discourse, where you say we ought first to define and declare what Love is, and then his works. This rule I particularly approve. But, come, since you have given us a discourse of such beauty and majesty concerning Love, you are able, I doubt not, to explain this question, whether Love is the love of something or nothing? I do not ask you of what parents Love is; for the inquiry, of whether Love is the love of any father or mother, would be sufficiently ridiculous. ”

“ I noticed others during the ball who stared at her with an insolence born of desire, which made my whole being quiver with indignation! All these great nobles love her, each in his own way, and she loves no one of them!"
And Agatha's glance passed through his memory like a lightning-flash, its dazzling brilliancy putting to flight all reason, all fear of ridicule, all self-distrust. ”