Sophie's life, as has been said, was preeminently an ideal one.
Materialism disturbed and perplexed her, and she ignored it as much as
possible. She was inspired and excited by the ideal she had conceived of
Bressant, and of her sphere of action with regard to him. But, had the
physical personality of the man been thrust upon her in the first place,
she would have very likely recoiled, her finer intuitions would have
been jarred, and their precision paralyzed. Standing aloof, however,
living and acting only in the realm of her pure maiden creeds, every
thing seemed clear and simple enough. Right should be done, and wrong be
righted; there would be no material conditions or hinderances; results
were attained immediately.
But life is not what the pure-hearted girl painted it in her ideal
dreams. The unconsidered obstacles rise into frowning and insurmountable
barriers. Those we would make our beneficiaries often fail to appreciate
their position, and turn our good into a worse evil than their own. We
may theorize about the human soul, but, to put our theories to the test,
is to assume an awful responsibility.