importance rather to what others did than to what they said; and could express more, and more subtle things, by deeds than by words. She had a fiery and almost wild temper, but it was never ungenerous or underhand; and she was sensitively and unreasonably proud. There was an almost insane streak in her, showing itself in strange freaks and escapades; she would laugh when she might have wept, and wept but seldom, and then in secret, and obstructedly or revengefully. She enjoyed the unusual aspects of nature and things, and was amused where other women would tremble. There was a vein of mischief in her; but this belonged to the brighter side of her character, and was arch and playful. What she needed, in order to the full health of her body and mind, was more deep and broad mental and moral occupation; what declared itself as ill health being but the effect of unemployed energy reacting upon itself. Her worst faults were perhaps an alert and intractable jealousy, and a readiness perversely to suspect others of insincerity and meanness toward herself. But the latter of these errors was caused by her low opinion of her personal deserts; and the former by her not ignoble zeal for the integrity of honorable and pure emotions, which, though harbored by her, belonged not to her individually, but were to the credit of our general human nature.
That Mr. Grant did not lose heart in face of the difficulties against which he had pitted himself, showed either that he possessed great temerity, or that he could see further than most people into millstones. It was not so much his aim, at first, to force the young people into each other’s society as to talk to each about the other, and about love and marriage; not obtruding his own views, but eliciting and criticising theirs. He was a pleasant man to talk with, for he made his interlocutor talkative; and the topics upon which he chiefly dwelt were such as seldom fail to interest any man or woman whose heart has not been misused—I will not say by others, or by the world, but—by the owner of it. To hear him, you would have thought that Mr. Grant, so far from desiring to impart information or understanding, was in search thereof, and needed support at every step. For one who had so much an air of cultivation and refinement, he was an amazingly unenlightened old gentleman.
“I remember, when I was a young fellow,” he said one day to Marion, “I held an opinion which was very unfashionable. Indeed, for the matter of that, a good many of my opinions were unfashionable. Since then I have come to reconsider not a few of them. One’s point of view changes as one moves on. Perhaps the notion to which I refer was erroneous, as well as the others.”
“You have not told me what it was,” said Marion.
“I mean, whether or not it is prudent and sensible to marry for love?”
“I don’t think love is a thing about which one ought to be prudent. Because prudence is to be careful not to put yourself to some inconvenience: and love outweighs all the inconveniences in the world ... I should think.”
“Aye; but suppose that, after a while, all the love should be gone, and only the inconvenience left? Then I should wish I had been prudent, shouldn’t I?”
“But a real love never can be gone. It is all there is of you. It must last as long as you do. And when you are gone, prudence is no matter.”
“I would agree with you, my dear, were it possible for us to know love when we see him. I fear there is a great deal of evidence that we do not do that. And though it takes only one person to make that mistake, not all the world can set it right again.”