Hughes_Tom_Brown_at_Oxford.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
home where everybody loved you. knew it; you were sure of it.
had felt their love ever since you could remember anything."
", dear, and feel it still. will be all just as fond of
me at home, though am your wife."
" home! is no longer your home."
", have a home of my own now. new home, with new love there
to live on; and an old home, with the old love to think of."
" new home instead of an old one, a poor home instead of a rich
one--a home where the cry of the sorrow and suffering of the
world will reach you, for one in which you had--"
" which had not you, dear. now, that was my purchase.
set my mind on having you--buying you, as that is your word.
have paid my price, and got my bargain, and--you know, was
always an oddity, and rather willful, am content with it."
", , you have bought me, and you little know, dearest,
what you have bought. can scarcely bear my own selfishness at
times when think of what your life might have been had left
you alone, and what it must be with me."
" what might it have been, dear?"
", you might have married some man with plenty of money, who
could have given you everything to which you have been used."
" shall begin to think that you believe in luxuries, after all,
if you go on making so much of them. must not go on preaching
one thing and practicing another. am a convert to your
preaching, and believe in the misery of multiplying artificial
wants. wife must have none."
", but wealth and position are not to be despised. feel
that, now that it is all done past recall, and have to think of
you. the loss of them is a mere nothing to what you will have
to go through."
" do you mean dear? course we must expect some troubles,
like other people."
", mean, that you might, at least, have married a
contented man, some one who found the world a very good world,
and was satisfied with things as they are, and had light enough
to steer himself by; and not a fellow like me, full of all manner
of doubts and perplexities, who sees little but wrong in the
world about him, and more in himself."
" think should have been more comfortable?"
", more comfortable and happier. right had to bring my
worries on you? know you can't live with me, dearest, and
not be bothered and annoyed when am anxious and dissatisfied."
" what if did not marry you to be comfortable?"
" darling, you never thought about it, and was too selfish to
think for you."
" now, you see, it's just as said."
" do you mean?"
" mean that you are quite wrong in thinking that have been
deceived. did not marry you, dear, to be comfortable, and did
think it all over; ay, over and over again. you are not to run
away with the belief that you have taken me in."
" shall be glad enough to give it up, dearest, if you can
convince me."
" you will listen while explain?"
", with all my ears and all my heart."
" remember the year we met, when we danced and went nutting
together, a thoughtless boy and girl--"
" it! ever--"
" are not to interrupt. course you remember it all, and are
ready to tell me that you loved me the first moment that you saw
me at the window in street. , perhaps shall not object
to being told it at a proper time, but now am making my
confessions. liked you then, because you were 's cousin,
and almost my first partner, and were never tired of dancing, and
were generally merry and pleasant, though you sometimes took to
lecturing, even in those days."
", --"
" are to be silent now and listen. liked you then. you
are not to look conceited and flatter yourself. was only a
girl's fancy. couldn't have married you then--given myself up
to you. , don't think could, even on the night when fished
for me out of the window with the heather and heliotrope, though
kept them and have them still. then came that scene down
below, at old 's cottage, and thought should never wish
to see you again. then came out in , and went abroad.
scarcely heard of you again for a year, for hardly ever
mentioned you in her letters, and though sometimes wished that
she would, and thought should just like to know what you were
doing, was too proud to ask. went out and enjoyed
myself, and had a great many pretty things said to me--much
prettier things than you ever said--and made the acquaintance of
pleasant young men, friends of papa and mamma; many of them with
good establishments, too. shall not tell you anything more
about them, or you will be going off about the luxuries have
been used to. began to hear of you again. came to
stay with us, and met some of your friends. dear
! was full of you and your wild sayings and doings,
half-frightened and half-pleased, but all the time the best and
truest friend you ever had. of the rest were not friends at
all; and have heard many a sneer and unkind word, and stories
of your monstrous speeches and habits. said you were mad;
others that you liked to be eccentric; that you couldn't bear to
live with your equals; that you sought the society of your
inferiors to be flattered. listened, and thought it all over,
and, being willful and eccentric myself, you know, liked more and
more to hear about you, and hoped should see you again some
day. was curious to judge for myself whether you were much
changed for the better or the worse.
" at last came the day when saw you again, carrying the poor
lame child; and, after that, you know what happened. here we
are, dear, and you are my husband. you will please never to
look serious again, from any foolish thought that have been
taken in; that did not know what was about when took you,
'for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness
and in health, till death us do part.' , what have you to say
for yourself?"
", but a great deal for you. see more and more, my
darling, what a brave, generous, pitying angel have tied to
myself. seeing that makes me despise myself more."
"! you are going to dare to disobey me already?"
" can't help it dearest. you say shows me more and more that
you have made all the sacrifice, and am to get all the benefit.
man like me has no right to bring such a woman as you under his
burden."
" you couldn't help yourself. was because you were out of
sorts with the world, smarting with the wrongs you saw on every
side, struggling after something better and higher, and siding
and sympathizing with the poor and weak, that loved you.
should never have been here, dear, if you had been a young
gentleman satisfied with himself and the world, and likely to get
on well in society."
", , it is all very well for a man. is a man's business.
why is a woman's life to be made wretched? should you be
dragged into all my perplexities, and doubts, and dreams, and
struggles?"
" why should not?"
" should be all bright and beautiful to a woman. is every
man's duty to shield her from all that can vex, or pain, or
soil."
" have women different souls from men?"
" forbid!"
" are we not fit to share your highest hopes?"
" share our highest hopes! , when we have any. the mire
and clay where one sticks fast over and over again, with no high
hopes or high anything else in sight--a man must be a selfish
brute to bring any one he pretends to love into all that."
", ," she said almost solemnly, "you are not true to
yourself. you part with your own deepest convictions?
you, if you could, go back to the time when you cared for and
thought about none of these things?"
thought a minute, and then, pressing her hand, said--
", dearest, would not. consciousness of the darkness in
one and around one brings the longing for light. then the
light dawns, through mist and fog, perhaps, but enough to pick
ones way by." stopped a moment, and then added, "and shines
ever brighter unto the perfect day. , begin to know it."
", why not put me on your own level? not let me pick my
way by your side? a woman feel the wrongs that are going
on in the world? she long to see them set right, and pray
that they may be set right? are not meant to sit in fine silks
and look pretty, and spend money, any more than you are meant to
make it, and cry peace where there is no peace. a woman cannot
do much herself, she can honor and love a man who can."
turned to her, and bent over her, and kissed her forehead, and
kissed her lips. looked up with sparkling eyes and said--
" not right, dear?"
", you are right, and have been false to my creed. have
taken a load off my heart, dearest. there shall be but
one mind and one soul between us. have made me feel what it
is that a man wants, what is the help that is mete for him."
looked into her eyes and kissed her again; and then rose up,
for there was something within him like a moving of new life,
which lifted him, and set him on his feet. he stood with
kindling brow, gazing into the autumn air, as his heart went
sorrowing, but hopefully "sorrowing, back through all the
faultful past." she sat on at first, and watched his face,
and neither spoke nor moved for some minutes. she rose, too,
and stood by his side:--
on her lover's arm she leant,
round her waist she felt it fold,
so across the hills they went,
that new world which is the old.
, that new world, through the golden gates of which they had
passed together, which is the old, old world, after all, and
nothing else. same old and new world it was to our fathers
and mothers as it is to us, and shall be to our children--a world
clear and bright, and ever becoming clearer and brighter to the
humble, and true, and pure of heart--to every man and woman who
will live in it as the children of the and of it,
their . them, and to them alone, is that world, old and
new, given, and all that is in it, fully and freely to enjoy.
others but these are occupying where they have no title, "they
are sowing much, but bringing in little; they eat, but have not
enough; they drink, but are not filled with drink; they clothe
themselves, but there is none warm; and he of them who earneth
wages, earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes."
these have the world and all things for a rightful and rich
inheritance; for they hold them as dear children of in whose
hand it and they are lying, and no power in earth or hell shall
pluck them out of their 's hand.