Here was a beautiful woman, who had run the
gamut of a London season, who had played a pretty social part, admirably
trained therefor by one of the best and most cultured families of
England. Besides, why should any woman sell her affections even to her
husband, bargain away her love, the one thing that sanctifies "what God
hath joined let no man put asunder"? Lali was primitive, she was unlike
so many in a trivial world, but she was right. She might suffer, she
might die, but, after all, there are many things worse than that. Man is
born in a day, and he dies in a day, and the thing is easily over; but to
have a sick heart for three-fourths of one's lifetime is simply to have
death renewed every morning; and life at that price is not worth living.
In this sensitive age we are desperately anxious to save life, as if it
was the really great thing in the world; but in the good, strong times of
the earth--and in these times, indeed, when necessity knows its hour--men
held their lives as lightly as a bird upon the housetop which any chance
stone might drop.
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