But instead of sharing my happiness, as I imagined she would, she grew paler and paler as I proceeded, and finally throwing her arms around my neck she burst into a passionate flood of tears.
“Harry, how cruel to talk to me of riches which can only be mine through your death! Henry—Henry, do you think so meanly of me—would not every dollar speak to my soul as from the grave of all I hold dear. I will die with you, my husband—but I beseech of you—I pray you by all our love to give up that hateful policy—no good will result from it!”
Was her angel voice prophetic!
Would to God I had obeyed her—then these chains would not confine me—but I am not mad—no—not mad!
I could not but admit her reasoning to be perfectly natural—just such as one might expect from a young, loving heart—for it is a bitter thought that by the death of our souls’ idols worldly comforts are to be granted us! And does not this tend to harden the feelings of the survivor—to crush the sensibilities, and render them insensible to those holy influences which come to the sincere mourner—turning sorrow into joy—mourning into gladness! nay, does it not produce selfishness and unrighteous wishes, even before death!
Life Insurance! Ay, write it, fiend, in letters of flame, and seal it with the blood of sacrifice! ha—ha! you would scorch my brain—but you cannot—it is seared—seared!
[The reader must recollect this is the speech of a madman—for certainly no sane person can deny or doubt the immense benefits daily arising from the noble institution of Life Insurance. In the case of this poor wretch, it would seem that the sudden loss of wealth acting upon a mind unhealthy from youthful excesses, and shattered by illness, had produced a morbidness upon which any chimera long dwelt upon, no matter in what shape it appeared, might at length impel to insanity—indeed, the very fancy brooded over, that Fanny in the event of his death would become a beggar, had already driven him, as we have seen, to the verge of madness when his friend advised the life insurance, and it is easy to conceive how the re-action from despondency to joy might, in the sickly state of his mind, have produced the lamentable result. Whatever, therefore, the unhappy Denton utters in his delirium against that institution for whose blessings the widow and the fatherless daily offer up prayers of thankfulness, must be considered only as the ravings of insanity.]
I labored in every way to do away the prejudices of my darling Fanny. I pictured to her in the strongest language what would be her wretched situation, left friendless and penniless by my death, and little by little she yielded to my arguments, and conversed calmly, though with an air of touching sadness, upon the subject.
My heart thus relieved of the burthen so long oppressing it, I became cheerful. My sighs and melancholy no longer grieved the tender sympathies of Fanny, and as in my happiness her own was found, what wonder her gayety soon outmeasured mine. Indeed one would have thought we were possessed of all the treasures of the earth, we were so happy. And what are the treasures earth can boast to equal love and contentment! I know it—ah, I know it—for these treasures were once mine—but they are gone—gone I say—ha! do you mock me, fiend—do you laugh at my agony!
This state of bliss soon ended.