“This world is not the real world,” she said, speaking earnestly and gazing at him intently to see how far his thought reflected hers.
“Is not this real?” Dexter asked, raising the hand of his wife and looking down upon it. “I call it a real hand.”
“And I,” said Mrs. Dexter, smiling, “call it only the appearance of a hand; it is the real hand that vitalizes and gives it power. This will decay—this appearance fade—but the real hand of my spirit will live on, immortal in its power as the human soul of which it makes a part.”
“Into what strange labyrinths your mind is wandering Jessie!” said Mr. Dexter, a slight shade of disapproval in his voice. “I am afraid you are losing yourself.”
“Rather say that I have been lost, and am finding myself in open paths, with the blue sky instead of forest foliage above me.”
“Your language is a myth, Jessie. I never heard of your being lost. To me you have been ever present, walking in the sunlight, a divine reality. Not the mere appearance of a woman; but a
Mr. Dexter was half playful, half serious. His reply disappointed his wife. Her manner, warmer than usual, took on a portion of its old reserve. But she went on speaking.
“The immortal soul, spiritual in its essence, yet organized in all its minutest parts—cannot attain its full stature unless it receives immortal food. The aliments of mere sensual life are for the body, and the mind’s lowest constituents of being; and they who are content to feed on husks must sort with the common herd. I have higher aspirations, my husband! I see within and above the animal and sensuous a real world of truth and goodness, where, and where only, the soul’s immortal desires can be satisfied. With the key in my hand shall I not enter? The common air is too thick for me. I must perish or rise into purer atmospheres.”
Mrs. Dexter paused, conscious that her husband did not appreciate her meanings. He was listening intently, and striving apparently after them; but to him only the things of sense were real; and he was not able to comprehend how lasting pleasure was to flow from the intellectual and spiritual. He did not answer, and she lapsed into silence; all the fine enthusiasm that had filled her countenance so full of a living beauty giving place to a cold, calm exterior. She had hoped to quicken her husband’s sluggish perceptions, and to create in his mind an incipient love for the pure and beautiful things after which her own mind was beginning to aspire.
In her intercourse with refined and intellectual persons, Mrs. Dexter had made the acquaintance of a lady named Mrs. De Lisle. Her residence was not far from Mrs. Dexter’s and they met often for pleasant and profitable conversation. In Mrs. De Lisle, Mrs. Dexter found a woman of not only superior attainments, but one possessing great purity of mind, and a high religious sense of duty. What struck her in the very beginning was a new mode of weighing human actions, and a quiet looking beneath the surface of things, and estimating all she saw by the quality within instead of by the appearance without. From the first, Mrs. Dexter was strongly attracted by this lady; and it was a little remarkable that her husband was as strongly repelled. He did not like her; and often spoke of her sneeringly as using an unknown tongue. His wife contended with him slightly at first in regard to Mrs. De Lisle; but soon ceased to notice his captious remarks.
In Mrs. De Lisle, the struggling and suffering young creature had found a true friend—not true in the sense of a weakly, sympathizing friend, but more really true; one who could lift her soul up into purer regions, and help it to acquire strength for duty.
There was another lady named Mrs. Anthony who had insinuated herself into the good opinion of Mrs. Dexter, and partially, also, into her confidence.
It does not take a quick-sighted woman long to comprehend the true marital standing of the friend in whom she feels an interest. Both Mrs. De Lisle and Mrs. Anthony soon discovered that no love was in the heart of Mrs. Dexter, and that consequently, no interior marriage existed. They saw also that Mr. Dexter was inferior, selfish, captious at times, and kept his wife always under surveillance, as if afraid of her constancy. The different conduct of the ladies, touching this relation of Mrs. Dexter to her husband, was in marked contrast. While Mrs. De Lisle never approached the subject in a way to invite communication, Mrs. Anthony, in the most adroit and insinuating manner, almost compelled a certain degree of confidence—or at least admission that there was not and never could be, any interior conjunction between herself and husband.
Mrs. Anthony was a highly intellectual and cultivated woman, with fascinating manners, a strong will, and singularly fine conversational powers. She usually exercised a controlling influence over all with whom she associated. Happy it was for Mrs. Dexter that a friend like Mrs. De Lisle came to her in the right time, and filled her mind with right principles for her own pure instincts to rest upon as an immovable foundation.
An hour spent in company with Mrs. Anthony always left Mrs. Dexter in a state of disquietude, and suffering from a sense of restriction and wrong. A feeling of alienation from her husband ever accompanied this state, and her spirit beat itself about, striking against the bars of conventional usage, until the bruised wings quivered with pain. But an hour spent with Mrs. De Lisle left her in a very different state. True thoughts were stirred, and the soul lifted upwards into regions of light and beauty. There was no grovelling about the earth, no fanning of selfish fires into smoky flames, no probing of half-closed wounds until the soul writhed in a new-born anguish—but instead, hopeful words, lessons of duty, and the introduction of an ennobling spiritual philosophy, that gave strength and tranquillity for the present, and promised the soul’s highest fruition in the surely coming future.
Both Mrs. De Lisle and Mrs. Anthony were at Saratoga. The announcement of Mrs. Dexter that she was going to leave for Newport so suddenly surprised them both, as it had been understood that she was to remain for some time longer.
“My husband wishes to visit Newport now,” was the answer of Mrs. Dexter to the surprised exclamation of Mrs. Anthony.
“Tell him that you wish to remain here,” replied Mrs. Anthony.
“He is not well, and thinks the sea air will do him good.”
“Not well! I met him an hour ago, and never saw him looking better in my life. Do you believe him?”
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Dexter.
Her friend laughed lightly, and then murmured—
“Simpleton! He’s only jealous, and wants to get you away from your admirers. Don’t go.”
Mrs. Dexter laughed with affected indifference, but her color rose.
