She must now depart from the submission she had sacredly
practised as a wife. The interests of her children compelled her to
oppose, in his most cherished tastes, the man she idolized. Must she
not daily force him back to common matters from the higher realms of
Science; drag him forcibly from a smiling future and plunge him into a
materialism hideous to artists and great men? To her, Balthazar Claes
was a Titan of science, a man big with glory; he could only have
forgotten her for the riches of a mighty hope. Then too, was he not
profoundly wise? she had heard him talk with such good sense on every
subject that he must be sincere when he declared he worked for the
glory and prosperity of his family. His love for his wife and family
was not only vast, it was infinite. That feeling could not be extinct;
it was magnified, and reproduced in another form.
Noble, generous, timid as she was, she prepared herself to ring into
the ears of this noble man the word and the sound of money, to show
him the sores of poverty, and force him to hear cries of distress when
he was listening only for the melodious voice of Fame. Perhaps his
love for her would lessen! If she had had no children, she would
bravely and joyously have welcomed the new destiny her husband was
making for her. Women who are brought up in opulence are quick to feel
the emptiness of material enjoyments; and when their hearts, more
wearied than withered, have once learned the happiness of a constant
interchange of real feelings, they feel no shrinking from reduced
outward circumstances, provided they are still acceptable to the man
who has loved them.
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