CHAPTER XXXII 470
is an asp in the garland : the wine has a bitter taste : her promises are hollow -- her offers false : I see and know all this ."
I gazed at him in wonder .
" It is strange ," pursued he , " that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly -- with all the intensity , indeed , of a first passion , the object of which is exquisitely beautiful , graceful , fascinating -- I experience at the same time a calm , unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife ; that she is not the partner suited to me ; that I should discover this within a year after marriage ; and that to twelve months ' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret . This I know ."
" Strange indeed !" I could not help ejaculating .
" While something in me ," he went on , " is acutely sensible to her charms , something else is as deeply impressed with her defects : they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to -- co- operate in nothing I undertook . Rosamond a sufferer , a labourer , a female apostle ? Rosamond a missionary ' s wife ? No !"
" But you need not be a missionary . You might relinquish that scheme ."
" Relinquish ! What ! my vocation ? My great work ? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven ? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race -- of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance -- of substituting peace for war -- freedom for bondage -- religion for superstition -- the hope of heaven for the fear of hell ? Must I relinquish that ? It is dearer than the blood in my veins . It is what I have to look forward to , and to live for ."
After a considerable pause , I said -- " And Miss Oliver ? Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you ?"
" Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers : in less than a month , my image will be effaced from her heart . She will forget me ; and