“My wife responds to my penitence with bitterness; but even the pagans were wiser. They ever took the gall from the animals offered to Juno, goddess of wedlock.”
“Thy wife promised to be thy helpmate and give thee all she had. Now, just forget thy fine paganism, being a Christian long enough to remember that I’m thy helpmate in all things, even in bitterness. I give thee all, even returning thy giving.”
“Thou shouldst not make so much of my little misstep.”
“Nothing is little with which one must constantly live. Great breaks grow from little fractures. One may stand a blow, but its the constant fretting that roughs the heart-strings to woe unendurable. Thou hast a habit of playfully hurting.”
“Well, this has been a day at school; there ought to be a school for husbands! We do not half understand the fine, sensitive creatures that companion us.”
“Oh, thou thoughtst thou wert a woman-reader!”
“Were I to see an angel with a body like a harp, eyes like the unsearchable ocean, heart of flame, arms like flowering vines, covered with prismatic wings, I’d be no more puzzled and abashed than I am now by my high-strung, fine-tempered Rizpah.”
“Puzzled! abashed! I’d help thee pity thy wounded conceit, but that I know that thou art soon to ascend. Art thou going now!”
“I’m afraid not, since I’ve so many more sins than graces. When elephants soar with butterfly wings, thou mayst look for my departure. Till then I’ll stay here and practice the patience of Job, beset with his rambling devil.”
“How elegantly the cavalier uses simile in coining epithets.”