created the feeling; it was the sense of an inward separation taking
form outwardly. For Richard was now but too well convinced that he
had no power of persuasion equal to the task of making Dorothy see
things as he saw them. The dividing influence of imperfect opposing
goods is potent as that of warring good and evil, with this
important difference, that the former is but for a season, and will
one day bind as strongly as it parted, while the latter is
essential, absolute, impassible, eternal.

To Dorothy, Richard seemed guilty of overweening arrogance and its
attendant, presumption; she could not see the form ethereal to which
he bowed. To Richard, Dorothy appeared the dupe of superstition; he
could not see the god that dwelt within the idol. To Dorothy,
Richard seemed to be one who gave the holy name of truth to nothing
but the offspring of his own vain fancy. To Richard, Dorothy
appeared one who so little loved the truth that she was ready to
accept anything presented to her as such, by those who themselves
loved the word more than the spirit, and the chrysalis of safety
better than the wings of power. But it is only for a time that any
good can to the good appear evil, and at this very moment, Nature,
who in her blindness is stronger to bind than the farthest-seeing
intellect to loose, was urging him into her presence; and the heart
of Dorothy, notwithstanding her initiative in the separation, was
leaning as lovingly, as sadly after the youth she had left alone
with the defaced sun-dial, the symbol of Time's weariness. Had they,
however, been permitted to meet as they would, the natural result of
ever-renewed dissension would have been a thorough separation in
heart, no heavenly twilights of loneliness giving time for the love
which grows like the grass to recover from the scorching heat of
intellectual jar and friction.