No wonder, if this be true, that we have so many women of taste,
cultivation, and often brilliant intellectual powers, blazing about
like comets or shooting stars in our social firmament. They attract
admiring attention, excite our wonder, give us themes for
conversation and criticism; but as guides and indicators while we
sail over the dangerous sea of life, what are they in comparison
with some humble star of the sixth magnitude that ever keeps its
true place in the heavens, shining on with its small but steady ray,
a perpetual blessing? And so the patient, thoughtful, loving wife
and mother, doing her daily work for human souls and bodies, though
her intellectual powers be humble, and her taste but poorly
cultivated, fills more honorably her sphere than any of her more
brilliant sisters, who cast off what they consider the shackles by
which custom and tyranny have bound them down to mere home duties
and the drudgery of household care. If down into these they would
bring their superior powers, their cultivated tastes, their larger
knowledge, how quickly would some desert homes in our land put on
refreshing greenness, and desolate gardens blossom like the rose! We
should have, instead of vast imaginary Utopias in the future, model
homes in the present, the light and beauty of which, shining abroad,
would give higher types of social life for common emulation.
Ah, if the Genius of Social Reform would only take her stand
centrally! If she would make the regeneration of homes the great
achievement of our day, then would she indeed come with promise and
blessing. But, alas! she is so far vagrant in her habits--a
fortune-telling gipsy, not a true, loving, useful woman.
Unhappily for Mrs. Emerson, it was the weird-eyed, fortune-telling
gipsy whose Delphic utterances had bewildered her mind.
The reconciliation which followed the Christmas-time troubles of
Irene and her husband had given both more prudent self-control. They
guarded themselves with a care that threw around the manner of each
a certain reserve which was often felt by the other as coldness. To
both this was, in a degree, painful. There was tender love in their
hearts, but it was overshadowed by self-will and false ideas of
independence on the one side, and by a brooding spirit of accusation
and unaccustomed restraint on the other. Many times, each day of
their lives, did words and sentiments, just about to be uttered by
Hartley Emerson, die unspoken, lest in them something might appear
which would stir the quick feelings of Irene into antagonism.
There was no guarantee of happiness in such a state of things.
Mutual forbearance existed, not from self-discipline and tender
love, but from fear of consequences. They were burnt children, and
dreaded, as well they might, the fire.
With little change in their relations to each other, and few events
worthy of notice, a year went by. Mr. Delancy came down to New York
several times during this period, spending a few days at each visit,
while Irene went frequently to Ivy Cliff, and stayed there,
occasionally, as long as two or three weeks. Hartley always came up
from the city while Irene was at her father's, but never stayed
longer than a single day, business requiring him to be at his office
or in court. Mr. Delancy never saw them together without closely
observing their manner, tone of speaking and language. Both, he
could see, were maturing rapidly. Irene had changed most. There was
a style of thinking, a familiarity with popular themes and a womanly
confidence in her expression of opinions that at times surprised
him. With her views on some subjects his own mind was far from being
in agreement, and they often had warm arguments. Occasionally, when
her husband was at Ivy Cliff a difference of sentiment would arise
between them. Mr. Delancy noticed, when this was the case, that
Irene always pressed her view with ardor, and that her husband,
after a brief but pleasant combat, retired from the field. He also
noticed that in most cases, after this giving up of the contest by
Hartley, he was more than usually quiet and seemed to be pondering
things not wholly agreeable.