noticed. What a fate for a man--to be tied for life to a woman
who will, with sure gradation, pass from at least outward beauty
to utter hideousness! Beauty, in a case like this, is but a mask
which time or the loathsome fingers of disease would surely strip
off; and then what an object would confront the disenchanted lover!
It would be like marrying a disguised death's-head. Never before
did I realize how essential is mental and moral culture to give
value to mere external beauty.

"And yet she seems to have a kind of quickness and aptness. She is
not wanting in womanly intuition. I still am inclined to believe
she has been dwarfed by circumstances and her wretched associations.
Her mind has been given no better means of development than
the knowledge of her beauty, the general and superficial homage
that it always receives, the little round of thought that centres
about self, and the daily question of dress. That's narrowing the
world down to a cage large enough only for a poll-parrot. If the
bird within has a parrot's nature, what is the use of opening the
door and showing it larks singing in the sky? I fear that's what
I'm trying to do, and that I shall go back to my fall work with a
meagre portfolio and a grudge against nature, for mocking me with
the fairest broken promise ever made."





Chapter XIV. A Revelation.