childish romance. If on the other hand your opinion is that people, not
with an assured subsistence, but with a fair chance to obtain it, and
with the stimulus of hope, health, and strong affection, may take the
chance of Fortune for better or worse, and share its good or its evil
together, the polite theory then becomes an absurdity in its turn: worse
than an absurdity, a blasphemy almost, and doubt of Providence; and a man
who waits to make his chosen woman happy, until he can drive her to
church in a neat little carriage with a pair of horses, is no better than
a coward or a trifler, who is neither worthy of love nor of fortune.

I don't say that the town folks are not right, but Helen Pendennis was a
country-bred woman, and the book of life, as she interpreted it, told her
a different story to that page which is read in cities. Like most soft
and sentimental women, matchmaking, in general, formed a great part of
her thoughts, and I daresay she had begun to speculate about her son's
falling in love and marrying long before the subject had ever entered
into the brains of the young gentleman. It pleased her (with that dismal
pleasure which the idea of sacrificing themselves gives to certain women)
to think of the day when she would give up all to Pen, and he should
bring his wife home, and she would surrender the keys and the best
bedroom, and go and sit at the side of the table, and see him happy. What
did she want in life, but to see the lad prosper? As an empress certainly
was not too good for him, and would be honoured by becoming Mrs. Pen; so
if he selected humble Esther instead of Queen Vashti, she would be
content with his lordship's choice. Never mind how lowly or poor the
person might be who was to enjoy that prodigious honour, Mrs. Pendennis
was willing to bow before her and welcome her, and yield her up the first
place. But an actress--a mature woman, who had long ceased blushing
except with rouge, as she stood under the eager glances of thousands of
eyes--an illiterate and ill-bred person, very likely, who must have lived