CHAPTER XXXIV 494
some difficulty , I got him to make the tour of the house . He just looked in at the doors I opened ; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs , he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a time : but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode .
This silence damped me . I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued . I inquired whether this was the case : no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone .
" Not at all ; he had , on the contrary , remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association : he feared , indeed , I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth . How many minutes , for instance , had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room ? -- By-the-bye , could I tell him where such a book was ?"
I showed him the volume on the shelf : he took it down , and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess , he began to read it .
Now , I did not like this , reader . St . John was a good man ; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold . The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him -- its peaceful enjoyments no charm . Literally , he lived only to aspire -- after what was good and great , certainly ; but still he would never rest , nor approve of others resting round him . As I looked at his lofty forehead , still and pale as a white stone -- at his fine lineaments fixed in study -- I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband : that it would be a trying thing to be his wife . I understood , as by inspiration , the nature of his love for Miss Oliver ; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses . I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him ; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it ; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers . I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes -- Christian and Pagan -- her lawgivers , her statesmen , her conquerors : a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon ; but , at the fireside , too often a cold cumbrous column , gloomy and out of place .