Then imagine yourself thrown
into daily conversation with some beautiful woman who has read what you
have read, thought what you have thought, and dreamed the dreams of a
nobler destiny that have visited you in waking and sleeping hours. A
woman who, as she learned your strange story, should weep for the pains
you suffered and rejoice for the difficulties overcome, who should
understand your half spoken thoughts and proudly sympathise in your
unuttered aspirations; in whom you might see the twin nature to your
own, and detect the strong spirit and the brave soul, half revealed
through the feminine gentleness and modesty that clothe her as with a
garment. Imagine all this, and then suppose it lay in your power, was a
question of choice, for you to take her hand in yours and go through
life and death together, till death seem life for the joy of being
united for ever. Suppose you married her--not to lock her up in an
indolent atmosphere of rosewater, narghyles, and sweetmeats, to die of
inanition or to pester you to death with complaints and jealousies and
inopportune caresses; but to be with you and help your life when you
most need help, by word and thought and deed, to grow more and more a
part of you, an essential element of you in action or repose, to part
from which would be to destroy at a blow the whole fabric of your
existence.
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