Tell me, Mrs. Lapham,
didn't this come into your mind when you first learned how
matters stood?"
"Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't think it
could be right."
"And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham?"
"Why, that's what I thought, of course. But I didn't
see my way----"
"No," cried the minister, "we are all blinded, we are all
weakened by a false ideal of self-sacrifice. It wraps us
round with its meshes, and we can't fight our way out of it.
Mrs. Lapham, what made you feel that it might be better
for three to suffer than one?"
"Why, she did herself. I know she would die sooner
than take him away from her."
"I supposed so!" cried the minister bitterly. "And yet
she is a sensible girl, your daughter?"
"She has more common-sense----"
"Of course! But in such a case we somehow think it must
be wrong to use our common-sense. I don't know where this
false ideal comes from, unless it comes from the novels
that befool and debauch almost every intelligence in
some degree. It certainly doesn't come from Christianity,
which instantly repudiates it when confronted with it.
Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-sense,
that she ought to make herself and the man who loves
her unhappy, in order to assure the life-long wretchedness
of her sister, whom he doesn't love, simply because her
sister saw him and fancied him first! And I'm sorry to
say that ninety-nine young people out of a hundred--oh,
nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand!--would
consider that noble and beautiful and heroic; whereas you
know at the bottom of your hearts that it would be
foolish and cruel and revolting.
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