"Not caring to recapitulate the whole story (for reticence is sometimes wisdom), I will merely observe that at the end of a somewhat heated controversy, her husband had smashed a mirror, with one of Webster's quarto dictionaries, and roundly declared that he 'preached for pay. Hang it, Madame, the salary's the thing!—you Bet! How can souls be saved without a salary? That's a plain question. They are not now, at all events, whatever may have been the case with the Old Lights, who had a great deal more zeal than discretion—more fools they! It can't be done in these days of high prices and costly raiment—with the obligation of feeding well and dressing better. What's life without money? What's talent without brass? What's genius without gold? They won't pay! No, no, Madame; in the game of life, diamonds are always trumps, and hearts are bound to lose. What's the result?
"'Listen! Five years ago, up in the mountains, I thought I had a call. I did, and went—and preached the new doctrines of Do-as-you-feel-a-mind-to-provided-you-don't-get-catched-at-it-ism—the regular out and out All-Right-ite-provided-you-don't-tread-on-my-corns religion. Well, I preached it, had large houses, converted many—and nearly starved! What's the consequence? Why, I left, and now hear only the loudest kind of calls! What's the loudest call? Why, the biggest salary! that's what's the matter! Do you see the point—the place where the laugh comes in? It's as plain as A B C to me, or any other man! and all the rest is leather and prunella—stuff, fudge—Hum!'
"Honest, out-spoken Dryasdust! How many of the world's teachers sail in the same boat! His eloquence—not all false, perhaps—was not lost upon his wife. The Dryasdusts are not all dead; there's a few more left of the same sort—only they keep their own counsel, even from their wives. New Lights!
"As a result of this conversation, Madame became a sort of cross between an Atheist and—God knows what; for she was neither one thing nor 'tother, but a sort of pseudo-philosophical nondescript, without any set principle of belief whatever. Her conscience froze.
"'Who knoweth the spirit of a man that it goeth upward, or of a beast that it goeth downward? The Spiritualists?—a pack of fanatics! I don't believe in ghosts'—but she shuddered as she gave utterance to the words, and her hair crawled upon her head as if touched with spectral fingers. No man disbelieves his immortality—the thing is impossible, per se; for although he may differ with that class of people who pretend to very extensive ghostly acquaintanceship and commerce, as many do—yet he doubtless always whistles as he passes a graveyard in the night! I certainly do! Why? Because I disbelieve in ghosts!—of course.
"She resumed her soliloquy: 'I'm nervous—that's all! I mean to eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow I die—DIE! What of it—isn't Death an eternal sleep? My husband says that it is, to all except the New Lights; but he's a fool, in some things, that's certain.... And after death the Judgement!' And she shuddered again, for a cold wind passed by her, and she thought it best to light two more candles and run her fingers over the piano, and take a glass of Sainsevain's best Angelica. 'Bah! who knows anything about a judgment? There's no such thing. He's dead. What of it? He can't talk! If he could, what of it? Ghosts can't testify in court! Besides, it was to be—and it's done. Fate is responsible, not I—
"'In spite of Reason, erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is is right.'
"'Tom was to die. The conditions that surrounded him were just such as had determined the results that followed. I was but the proxy of eternal Fate. Am I to blame? Certainly not, for I acted in precise accordance with the conditions that surrounded me—that made me do as I did—tempted me beyond my strength; and, for that reason, the crime, if crime it be, was a foregone conclusion from the foundation of the world! Hereafter?
"'Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,
And I may take some softer path to glory.'
"'Parrhasius was a true philosopher—or Willis. Pshaw! I guess I'll take another drop of Angelica!'