The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Pardon me. You were introduced, as Jupiter was to Semele, by thunder and lightning, which was, happily, not quite as fatal.
Mr. Falconer. I must guard against its being as fatal in a different sense; otherwise I may be myself the triste bidental.{2} I have aimed at living, like an ancient Epicurean, a life of tranquillity. I had thought myself armed with triple brass against the folds of a three-formed Chimaera. What with classical studies, and rural walks, and a domestic society peculiarly my own, I led what I considered the perfection of life: 'days so like each other they could not be remembered.' {3}
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. It is vain to make schemes of life. The world will have its slaves, and so will Love.
Say, if you can, in what you cannot change. For such the mind of man, as is the day The Sire of Gods and men brings over him.{4}
1 (Greek passage)—Antigone.
2 Bidental is usually a place struck by lightning: thence
enclosed, and the soil forbidden to be moved. Persius uses
it for a person so killed.
3 Wordsworth: The Brothers.
4 Quid placet aut odio est, quod non mutabile credas?
(Greek phrase) These two quotations form the motto of
Knight's Principles of Taste.
Mr. Falconer. I presume, doctor, from the complacency with which you speak of Love, you have had no cause to complain of him.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Quite the contrary. I have been an exception to the rule that 'The course of true love never did run smooth.' Nothing could run more smooth than mine. I was in love. I proposed. I was accepted. No crossings before. No bickerings after. I drew a prize in the lottery of marriage.
Mr. Falconer. It strikes me, doctor, that the lady may say as much.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have made it my study to give her cause to say so. And I have found my reward.
Mr. Falconer. Still, yours is an exceptional case. For, as far as my reading and limited observation have shown me, there are few happy marriages. It has been said by an old comic poet that 'a man who brings a wife into his house, brings into it with her either a good or an evil genius.'{1} And I may add from Juvenal: 'The Gods only know which it will be.'{2}