THE season at Newport closed, and the summer birds of fashion
flitted away. But Mrs. Dexter still remained, and in a feeble
condition. It was as late as November before the physician in
attendance would consent to her removal. She was then taken home,
but so changed that even her nearest friends failed to recognize in
her wan, sad, dreary face, anything of its old expression.
No man could have been kinder--no man could have lavished warmer
attentions on another than were lavished on his wife by Mr. Dexter.
With love-like assiduity, he sought to awaken her feelings to some
interest in life; not tiring, though she remained as coldly passive
as marble. But she gave him back no sign. There was neither
self-will, perverseness, nor antagonism, in this; but paralysis
instead. Emotion had died.
It was Christmas before Mrs. Dexter left her room--and then she was
so weak as to need a supporting arm. Tonics only were administered
by her physician; but if they acted at all, it was so feebly that
scarcely any good result appeared. The cause of weakness lay far
beyond the reach of his medicines.
With the slow return of bodily strength and mental activity, was
developed in the mind of Mrs. Dexter a feeling of repugnance to her
husband that went on increasing. She did not struggle against this
feeling, because she knew, by instinct, that all resistance would be
vain. It was something over which she could not possibly have
control; the stern protest of nature against an alliance unblessed
by love.
One day, during mid-winter, her best friend, Mrs. De Lisle, in
making one of her usual visits, found her sitting alone, and in
tears. It was the first sign of struggling emotion that she had yet
seen, and she gladly recognized the tokens of returning life.
"Showers for the heart," she said, almost smiling, as she kissed the
pale invalid. "May the green grass and the sweet smiling violets
soon appear."
Mrs. Dexter did not reply, but with unusual signs of feeling, hid
her face in the garments of her friend.
"How are you to-day?" asked Mrs. De Lisle, after she had given time
for emotion to subside.
"About as usual," was answered, and Mrs. Dexter looked with
regaining calmness into her face.
"I have not seen you so disturbed for weeks," said Mrs. De Lisle.
"I have not felt so wild a strife in my soul for months," was
answered. "Oh, that I could die! It was this prayer that unlocked
the long closed fountain of tears."
"With God are the issues of life," said Mrs. De Lisle. "We must each
of us wait His good time--patiently, hopefully, self-denyingly
wait."
"I know! I know!" replied Mrs. Dexter. "But I cannot look along the
way that lies before me without a shudder. The path is too
difficult."
"You will surely receive strength."
"I would rather die!" A slight convulsion ran through her frame.
"Don't look into the future, dear young friend! Only to-day's duties
are required; and strength ever comes with the duty."
"Not even God can give strength for mine," said Mrs. Dexter, almost
wildly.
"Hush! hush! the thought is impious!" Mrs. De Lisle spoke in warning
tones.
"Not impious, but true. God did not lay these heavy burdens on me.
My own hands placed them there. If I drag a pillar down upon myself,
will God make my bones iron so that they shall not be broken? No,
Mrs. De Lisle; there is only one hope for me, and that is in death;
and I pray for it daily."
"You state the case too strongly," said Mrs. De Lisle. "God provides
as well as provides. His providence determining what is best for us;
and His providence counteracts our ignorance, self-will, or evil
purposes, and saves us from the destruction we would blindly meet.
He never permits any act in His creatures, for which He does not
provide an agency that turns the evil that would follow into good.
Your case is parallel to thousands. As a free woman, you took this
most important step. God could not have prevented it without
destroying that freedom which constitutes your individuality,
and makes you a recipient of life from Him. But He can sustain you
in the duties and trials you have assumed; and He will do it, if you
permit Him to substitute His divine strength for your human
weakness. In all trial, affliction, calamity, suffering, there is a
germ of angelic life. It is through much tribulation that the
Kingdom of Heaven is gained. Some spirits require intenser fires for
purification than others; and yours may be of this genus. God is the
refiner and the purifier; and He will not suffer any of the gold and
silver to be lost. Dear friend! do not shrink away from the ordeal."
"I am not strong enough yet." It was all the reply Mrs. Dexter made.
Her voice was mournful in the extreme.
"Wait for strength. As your day is, so shall it be."
Mrs. Dexter shook her head.
"What more can I say?" Mrs. De Lisle spoke almost sadly, for she
could not see that her earnestly spoken counsel had wrought any good
effect.
"Nothing! nothing! dear friend!" answered Mrs. Dexter, still very
mournfully.
A little while she was silent; and seemed in debate with herself. At
length she said--
"Dear Mrs. De Lisle! To you I have unveiled my heart more than to
any other human being. And I am constrained to draw the veil a
little farther aside. To speak will give relief; and as you are
wiser, help may come. At Saratoga, I confided to you something on
that most delicate of all subjects, my feelings towards my husband.
I have yet more to say! Shall I go farther in these painful, almost
forbidden revelations?"
"Say on," was the answer, "I shall listen with no vain curiosity."
"I am conscious," Mrs. Dexter began, "of a new feeling towards my
husband. I call it new, for, if only the fuller development of an
old impression, it has all the vividness of a new-born emotion.
Before my illness, I saw many things in him to which I could attach
myself; and I was successful, in a great measure, in depressing what
was repellant, and in magnifying the attractive. But now I seem to
have been gifted with a faculty of sight that enables me to look
through the surface as if it were only transparent glass; and I see
qualities, dispositions, affections, and tendencies, against which
all my soul revolts. I do not say that they are evil; but they are
all of the earth earthy. Nor do I claim to be purer and better than
he is--only so different, that I prefer death to union. It is in
vain to struggle against my feelings, and I have ceased to
struggle."
"You are still weak in body and mind," answered Mrs. De Lisle. "All
the pulses of returning life are feeble. Do not attempt this
struggle now."
"It must be now, or never," was returned. "The current is bearing me
away. A little while, and the most agonizing strife with wave and
tempest will prove of no avail."
"Look aloft, dear friend! Look aloft!" said Mrs. De Lisle. "Do not
listen to the maddening dash of waters below, nor gaze at the
shuddering bark; but upwards, upwards, through cloud-rifts, into
heaven!"
"I have tried to look upwards--I _have_ looked upwards--but the
sight of heaven only makes earth more terrible by contrast."
"Who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb?" asked Mrs. De Lisle, in a deep, earnest voice. A pause, and
then--"They who have come up through great tribulation! Think of
this, dear friend. Heaven may be beautiful in your eyes, but the way
to heaven is by earthly paths. You cannot get there, except by the
way of duty; and your duty is not to turn away from, but to your
husband, in the fulfillment of your marriage vows--to the letter. I
say nothing of the spirit, but the letter of this law you must keep.
Mr. Dexter is not an evil-minded man. He is a good citizen, and
desires to be a good husband. His life, to the world, is
irreproachable. The want of harmony in taste, feeling and character,
is no reason for disseverance. You cannot leave him, and be
guiltless in the eyes of God or man."
"I did not speak of leaving him," said Mrs. Dexter, looking up
strangely into the face of Mrs. De Lisle.
"But you have thought of it," was answered. A flush dyed the pale
face of Mrs. Dexter. "Oh, my friend, beware of evil counsellors!
Mrs. Anthony"--
"Has never looked into my heart. It is shut and fastened with clasps
of iron when she is near," returned Mrs. Dexter.
"The presence of such a woman suggests rebellion," said Mrs. De
Lisle; "her thoughts are communicated by another way than speech. Is
it not so?"
"Perhaps it is. I feel the spirit of antagonism rising whenever I am
with her. I grow restive--impatient of these bonds--indignant
towards my husband; though the subject is never mentioned."
"Be on your guard against her, my young friend. Her principles are
not religiously sound. This I say to you, because duty requires me
to say it. Placed in your position, and with your feelings towards
her husband, if no personal and selfish consideration came in to
restrain her, she would not hesitate at separation--nay, I fear, not
even at a guilty compact with another."
"You shock me!" said Mrs. Dexter.
"I speak to you my real sentiments; and in warning. In your present
state of mind, be very reserved towards her. You are not strong
enough to meet her quick intelligence, nor able to guard yourself
against her subtle insinuations. When was she here last?"
A sudden thought prompted the question.
"She left just before you came in," answered Mrs. Dexter.
"And your mind has been disturbed, not tranquillized, by her visit?"
"I am disturbed, as you see."
"On what subject did she speak?" asked Mrs. De Lisle.
"You know her usual theme?"
"Inharmonious marriages?"
"Yes."
"I do not wonder that you were disturbed. How could it be
otherwise?"
"She gives utterance to many truths," said Mrs. Dexter.
"But even truth may be so spoken as to have all the evil effect of
error," was promptly answered.
"Can truth ever do harm? Is it not the mind's light? Truth shows us
the way in which we may walk safely," said Mrs. Dexter, with some
earnestness of manner.
"Light, by which the eye sees, will become a minister of
destruction, if the eye is inflamed. A mind diseased cannot bear
strong gleams of truth. They will blind and deceive, rather than
illustrate. The rays must be softened. Of the many truths to which
Mrs. Anthony gave utterance this morning, which most affected your
mind?"
"She spoke," said Mrs. Dexter, after a little reflection, "of
natural affinities and repulsions, which take on sometimes the
extreme condition of idiosyncrasies. Of conjunctions of soul in true
marriages, and of disjunction and disgust where no true marriage
exists."
"Did she explain what she understood by a true marriage?" asked Mrs.
De Lisle.
"I do not remember any formal explanation. But her meaning was
obvious."
"What, then, did she mean?"
A little while Mrs. Dexter thought, and then answered--
"She thinks that men and women are born partners, and that only they
who are fortunate enough to meet are ever happy in marriage--are, in
fact, really married."
"How is a woman to know that she is rightly mated?" asked Mrs. De
Lisle.
"By the law of affinities. The instincts of our nature are never at
fault."
"So the thief who steals your watch will say the instincts of his
nature all prompted to the act. If our lives were orderly as in the
beginning, Mrs. Dexter, we might safely follow the soul's unerring
instincts. But, unfortunately, this is not the case; and instinct
needs the law of revelation and the law of reason for its guide."
"You believe in true, interior marriages?" said Mrs. Dexter.
"Yes, marriages for eternity."
"And that they are made here?"
Mrs. De Lisle did not answer immediately.
"The preparation for eternal marriage is here," she said, speaking
thoughtfully.
Mrs. Dexter looked at her like one in doubt as to the meaning of
what she heard. She then said:
"In a true marriage, souls must conjoin by virtue of an original
affinity. In a word, the male and the female must be born for each
other."
"There are a great many vague notions afloat on this subject," said
Mrs. De Lisle; "and a great deal of flippant talk. If there are men
and women born for each other, one thing is very certain, both need
a great deal of alteration before they can unite perfectly; and the
trial will, in most cases, not so fully prove this theory of quality
in sexual creation as you might suppose. 'Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity!' If this were not true of every one, there might be a
little more hope for happiness in marriage. Let us imagine the union
of two persons, born with that original containing affinity of which
you speak--and the existence of which I do not deny. We will suppose
that the man inherits from his ancestors certain evil and selfish
qualities; and that the woman inherits from her ancestors certain
evil and selfish qualities also. They marry young, and before either
is disciplined by right principle, or regenerated by Divine truth.
Now, this being the case, do you suppose that, in the beginning,
their pulses will beat in perfect harmony? That there will be no
jarring in the machinery of their lives?"
Mrs. De Lisle paused, but received no answer.
"In just the degree," she continued, "that each is selfish, and
fails to repress that selfishness, will the other suffer pain or
feel repulsion? And they will not come into the true accordance of
their lives until both are purified through a denial of self, and an
elevation of the spiritual above the natural. For it is in the
spiritual plane where true marriages take place; and only with those
who are regenerated. All that goes before is preparation."
Mrs. Dexter continued looking earnestly into the face of Mrs. De
Lisle.
"Does your thought follow me?" asked the latter.
"Yes," was all the answer.
"If true marriages are for eternity, each of the partners must be
born into spiritual life; and that birth is always with pain. The
husband, instead of being a mere natural and selfish man, must be a
lover of higher and purer things. He must be a seeker after Divine
intelligence, that he may be lifted with wisdom coming from the
infinite Source of wisdom. And the wife, elevating her affections
through self-denial and repression of the natural, must acquire a
love for the spiritual wisdom of her husband before her soul can
make one with his. Do you comprehend this?"
"Dimly. He must be wise in heavenly love; and she a lover of
heavenly wisdom."
"There must be something more," said Mrs. De Lisle.
"What more?"
"No two masculine souls are alike, and heavenly wisdom is infinite.
The finite mind receives only a portion of the Divine intelligence.
Each, therefore, is in the love of growing wise in a certain degree
or direction. The feminine soul, to make conjunction perfect, must
be a lover of wisdom in that degree, or direction."
"You bewilder me," said Mrs. Dexter.
"Let me rather enlighten. The great truth I wish to make clear to
you is that there can be no marriage in the higher sense without
spiritual regeneration. By nature we are evil--that is selfish; for
self love is the very essence of all evil--and until heavenly life
is born in us there can be no interior marriage conjunction. It is
possible, then--and I want you to look the proposition fairly in the
face--for two who are created for each other, to live very unhappily
together during the first years of their married life. Do you ask
why? Because both are selfish by nature; and self seeks its own
delight. I have sometimes thought," continued Mrs. De Lisle, "in
pondering this subject, that those who are born for each other are
not often permitted to struggle together in painful antagonism
during the stern ordeals through which so many have to pass ere self
is subdued, and the fires of Divine love kindled on the heart's
altars."
"Meeting life's discipline apart, or in strife with an alien," said
Mrs. Dexter.
"As you will. But the lesson, I trust, is clear. Only they who bear
the cross can wear the crown. The robes must be made white in the
blood of the Lamb. And now, dear friend! if you would be worthy of
an eternal marriage, take up your cross. If there is a noble, manly
soul to which you would be conjoined forever, set earnestly about
the task of preparation for that union. The wedding garment must be
wrought; the lamps trimmed and burning. Not in neglect of duty; not
in weak repinings, or helpless despondency is this work done; but in
daily duty. The soul of your husband is precious in the eyes of God
as your own. Never forget this. And it may be a part of your
heaven-assigned work--nay, is--to help him to rise into a higher
life. May you grow angel-minded in the good work!"
"How tranquil I have become," said Mrs. Dexter, a little while
afterwards. "The heavy pressure on heart and brain is removed."
"You have not been thinking of yourself; and that has brought a
change in your state of feeling. Cease to struggle in your bonds;
but rise up and go forward with brave heart, and be true as steel to
all your obligations. The way may look dark, the burdens heavy; but
fear not. Move on, and Divine light will fall upon your path; stoop
to the burden, and Divine strength will be given. So I counsel you,
dear sister! And I pray you heed the counsel."