The Vicars Daughter | Page 8

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 who, loving a man, hesitate to run every risk with him. Of
course, if they cannot trust him, it is a different thing. I am not going to
say any thing about that; for I should be out of my depth,--not in the
least understanding how a woman can love a man to whom she cannot
look up. I believe there are who can; I see some men married whom I

don't believe any woman ever did or ever could respect; all I say is, I
don't understand it.
My father and mother made no objection, and were evidently at last
quite agreed that it would be the best thing for both of us; and so, I say,
we were married.
I ought to just mention, that, before the day arrived, my mother went up
to London at Percivale's request, to help him in getting together the few
things absolutely needful for the barest commencement of
housekeeping. For the rest, it had been arranged that we should furnish
by degrees, buying as we saw what we liked, and could afford it. The
greater part of modern fashions in furniture, having both been
accustomed to the stateliness of a more artistic period, we detested for
their ugliness, and chiefly, therefore, we desired to look about us at our
leisure.
My mother came back more satisfied with the little house he had taken
than I had expected. It was not so easy to get one to suit us; for of
course he required a large room to paint in, with a good north light. He
had however succeeded better than he had hoped.
"You will find things very different from what you have been used to,
Wynnie," said my mother.
"Of course, mamma; I know that," I answered. "I hope I am prepared to
meet it. If I don't like it, I shall have no one to blame but myself; and I
don't see what right people have to expect what they have been used
to."
"There is just this advantage," said my father, "in having been used to
nice things, that it ought to be easier to keep from sinking into the
sordid, however straitened the new circumstances may be, compared
with the old."
On the evening before the wedding, my father took me into the octagon
room, and there knelt down with me and my mother, and prayed for me
in such a wonderful way that I was perfectly astonished and overcome.

I had never known him to do any thing of the kind before. He was not
favorable to extempore prayer in public, or even in the family, and
indeed had often seemed willing to omit prayers for what I could not
always count sufficient reason: he had a horror at their getting to be a
matter of course, and a form;