Her emotions were apparently
rationalised at birth--to be derationalised and broken up by a power
greater than herself before her life had worked itself out. I had counted
her clever; I had not reckoned with her powers of reasoning. Influenced
as I was by emotion when in her presence, I resorted to a personal
application of my opinions--the last and most unfair resort of a
disputant. I said I would rather be Anson dead than Mrs. Anson living; I
would rather be the active than the passive sinner; the victim, than a
part of that great and cruel machine of penalty.
"The passive sinner!" she replied. "Why, what wrong did she do?"
The highest moral conceptions worked dully in her. Yet she seemed then,
as she always appeared to be, free from any action that should set the
machine of penalty going against herself. She was inexorable, but she had
never, knowingly, so much as slashed the hem of the moral code.
"It was to give his wife pleasure that Anson made the false step," I
urged.
"Do you think she would have had the pleasure at the price? The man was
vain and selfish to run any risk, to do anything that might endanger her
safety--that is, her happiness and comfort.
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