approval.
In those days Richard had no dream of wedding above his class, and he understood
very well that Emma Vine was distinguished in many ways from the crowd of
working girls. There was no one else he wished to marry. Emma would feel herself
honoured by his choice, and, what he had not himself observed, his mother led
him to see that yet deeper feelings were concerned on the girl's side. This
flattered him - a form of emotion to which he was ever susceptible - and the
match was speedily arranged.
    He had never repented. The more he knew of Emma, the more confirmation his
favourable judgments received. He even knew at times a stirring of the senses,
which is the farthest that many of his kind ever progress in the direction of
love. Of the nobler features in Emma's character he of course remained ignorant;
they did not enter into his demands upon woman, and he was unable to discern
them even when they were brought prominently before him. She would keep his
house admirably, would never contradict him, would mother his children to
perfection, and even would go so far as to take an intelligent interest in the
Propaganda. What more could a man look for?
    So there was no strife between old love and new; so far as it concerned
himself, to put Emma aside would not cost a pang. The garrison was absolutely
mere tongue, mere gossip of public-house bars, firesides, etc. - more serious,
of the Socialist lecture-rooms. And what of the girl's own feeling? Was there no
sense of compassion in him? Very little. And in saying so I mean anything but to
convey that Mutimer was conspicuously hard-hearted. The fatal defect in working
people is absence of imagination, the power which may be solely a gift of nature
and irrespective of circumstances, but which in most of us owes so much to
intellectual training. Half the brutal cruelties perpetrated by uneducated men
and women are directly traceable to lack of the imaginative spirit, which comes
to mean lack of kindly sympathy. Mutimer, we know, had got for himself only the
most profitless of educations, and in addition nature had scanted him on the
emotional side. He could not enter into the position of Emma deserted and
hopeless. Want of money was intelligible to him, so was bitter disappointment at
the loss of a good position, but the former he would not allow Emma to suffer;
and the latter she would, in the nature of things, soon get over. Her love for
him he judged by his own feeling