A FALLEN ANGEL
A FALLEN ANGEL.
“Lose it she can—all that makes her sweet and lovely and lovable; but while she keeps her woman’s heart and nature, her life, in your religion, must be a constant martyrdom, and must be in its nature demoralizin’ and debasin’, dealin’ the morals fearful and totterin’ blows.
“Why, don’t you s’pose I can take it to myself? Now, Home is the most heavenly word we know. We hain’t learnt the heavenly alphabet yet, none of us, and so can’t spell out the word Heaven as it ort to be spelt. We are children that hain’t learnt God’s language yet. But Home in its true meanin’ is sunthin’ as near heaven as we can translate and spell out below. Home, when it is built as any home must be in order to stand, on a true love, and in the fear of God, such a home is almost a heaven below. I know it, for a certain home was built on these very foundations upwards of 20 years ago, and not a j’int has moved, not a sleeper decayed. Such a home means delight, rest, comfort. I know it, and my Josiah knows it.
“But let Josiah Allen bring home one more wife, let alone a dozen or fifteen of ’em—let him bring home one small wife besides Samantha, and I should find that home meant sunthin’ very different from peace and rest and happiness. And Josiah Allen would find out that it did, too. He would, if I know my own heart, and am not deceived in myself. And when I think of it, think of what my own sect are a sufferin’ right here in our own land, it makes my blood bile up in my vains, and the tears jest start to every eye in my head, and if I had two dozen eyes I could cry and weep with every one of ’em, a thinkin’ how I should feel under them circumstances—a thinkin’ of the desecration of all that is holiest, and purest, and most blessed. Thinkin’ of the agony of remembrance, and regret, and despair that would sweep over me—remembrance of the old, happy days when I was blest with the love that had gone from me—regret for all the happy days, happy words of love and tenderness, happy hours of confidence and affection—mine once, gone forever. Despair, utter, black despair that all was past.
“And besides this sufferin’, think of the ravages it would make in my morals, as well as his’en. I know jest how much my morals can stand, I know to a inch jest how much strain I can put onto ’em. And I know, jest as well as I know my name was once Smith, that another wife would make ’em totter. And, to be perfectly plain and truthful, I know that wife would make ’em fall perfectly flat down, and break ’em all into pieces, and ruin ’em. I shouldn’t have a single moral left sound and hull, and I know it. I should be ugly.”
Says I, with a added eloquence and bitterness of tone, as my mind roved back onto a certain widder:
“To have another woman come a snoopin’ into my house and my pardner’s heart—why, language hain’t made mean enough to tell what my meanness would be under the circumstances. And her morals, too—why, don’t you s’pose her morals would be flat as a pancake? Yea, verily. And where would my Josiah’s morals be? He wouldn’t have none, not a moral, nor a vestige of any. And there would be three likely persons spilte, entirely, and eternally spilte. And do you s’pose we three persons are so different from any other three persons? No, human nature (man human nature, and woman human nature) is considerable the same all over the world.”
And agin as that fearful scene presented itself to my imagination, of another woman enterin’ into my Josiah’s heart, I sithed powerful, and went on with renewed eloquence. I was fearfully eloquent, and smart as I could be; deep.