his own sight; he could then only sin when he did some act
against his clear conviction; the light that he walked by was
obscure, but it was single. Now, when two people of any grit
and spirit put their fortunes into one, there succeeds to this
comparative certainty a huge welter of competing
jurisdictions. It no longer matters so much how life appears
to one; one must consult another: one, who may be strong, must
not offend the other, who is weak. The only weak brother I am
willing to consider is (to make a bull for once) my wife. For
her, and for her only, I must waive my righteous judgments,
and go crookedly about my life. How, then, in such an
atmosphere of compromise, to keep honour bright and abstain
from base capitulations? How are you to put aside love's
pleadings? How are you, the apostle of laxity, to turn
suddenly about into the rabbi of precision; and after these
years of ragged practice, pose for a hero to the lackey who
has found you out? In this temptation to mutual indulgence
lies the particular peril to morality in married life. Daily
they drop a little lower from the first ideal, and for a while
continue to accept these changelings with a gross complacency.
At last Love wakes and looks about him; finds his hero sunk
into a stout old brute, intent on brandy pawnee; finds his
heroine divested of her angel brightness; and in the flash of
that first disenchantment, flees for ever.

Again, the husband, in these unions, is usually a man,
and the wife commonly enough a woman; and when this is the
case, although it makes the firmer marriage, a thick
additional veil of misconception hangs above the doubtful
business. Women, I believe, are somewhat rarer than men; but