perhaps then drop out of the public regard),--notwithstanding this, I
venture the sweeping assertion, that every woman is not as good as every
man, and that it is not necessary to the dignity of a wife that she should
assert even equality with her husband. Let him assert her equality or
superiority if he will; but, were it a fact, it would be a poor one for
her to assert, seeing her glory is in her husband. To seek the chief place
is especially unfitting the marriage-feast. Whether I be a Christian or
not,--and I have good reason to doubt it every day of my life,--at least
I see that in the New Jerusalem one essential of citizenship consists in
knowing how to set the good in others over against the evil in ourselves.

There, now, my father might have said that! and no doubt has said so twenty
times in my hearing. It is, however, only since I was married that I have
come to see it for myself; and, now that I do see it, I have a right to say
it.

So we were married at last. My mother believes it was my father's good
advice to Percivale concerning the sort of pictures he painted, that
brought it about. For certainly soon after we were engaged, he began to
have what his artist friends called a run of luck: he sold one picture
after another in a very extraordinary and hopeful manner. But Percivale
says it was his love for me--indeed he does--which enabled him to see not
only much deeper into things, but also to see much better the bloom that
hangs about every thing, and so to paint much better pictures than before.
He felt, he said, that he had a hold now where before he had only a sight.
However this may be, he had got on so well for a while that he wrote
at last, that, if I was willing to share his poverty, it would not, he
thought, be absolute starvation; and I was, of course, perfectly content.
I can't put in words--indeed I dare not, for fear of writing what would
be, if not unladylike, at least uncharitable--my contempt for those women