It seemed so for a
while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be so. His first
passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or stain upon
it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of any word
or look he would have wished to forget. All those little differences,
such as young married people with any individual flavor in their
characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added to
the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some
perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the
whole harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate, had
inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was
clean, and its edge was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in
healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may say, by the wise and
beneficent law of our being. The recollection of a deep and true
affection, is rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow strong
upon than a poison to destroy it.
Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early
bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between
natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary
tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and
fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an
anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the
heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed.
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