The very consciousness, I should suppose, that our destinies,
our hopes, our objects, our cares--in short, our joys and sorrows, are
identical and mutual, to be shared with and by each other, and that
all those delightful interchanges of a thousand nameless offices of
tenderness that spring up from the on-going business of our own
peculiar life--these alone, I can very well imagine, would constitute
an enjoyment far higher, purer, holier, than mere romantic love. Then,
papa, surely we are not to live solely for ourselves. There are the
miseries and wants of others to be lessened or relieved, calamity to
be mitigated, the pale and throbbing brow of sickness to be cooled, the
heart of the poor and neglected to be sustained and cheered, and the
limbs of the weary to be clothed and rested. Why, papa," she proceeded,
her, dark eye kindling at the noble picture of human duty she had
drawn, "when we take into contemplation the delightful impression of two
persons going thus, hand in hand, through life, joining in the discharge
of their necessary duties, assisting their fellow-creatures, and
diffusing good wherever they go--each strengthening and reflecting the
virtues of the other, may we not well ask how they could look upon each
other without feeling the highest and noblest spirit of tenderness,
affection, and esteem?"
"O yes, I was right, Lucy; all romances, all imagination, all honeypot,
with a streak of treacle here and there for the shading," and, as he
spoke, he committed another felony in the disguise of a horse-laugh,
which, however, came only from the jaws out.
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