Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/375

Rh bath, when I was speaking in favor of marriage, and she against it, she stood silent, glancing thoughtfully down into the water, and in a few moments began to sing softly, to a clear but solemn tune. I listened. It was the dead march of Beethoven. This touched me deeply and made me seriously reflect. Is this delicate young creature indeed, fitted for marriage? Cannot people be happy without marriage? Am not I myself so? And she with her enjoyment of nature and art, her unassuming enjoyment of the innocent and the lovely in life? If there were only not those twelve female friends! And if Hercules were only not so good a man, so exactly the protecting friend which she needs! She has, however, in the mean time promised me to think seriously about him, and if she should ever be conscious of a decided liking for him, to announce the fact to me by dressing herself in white. Since then, I have said no more about him. She must make her resolve in perfect freedom!

It is pleasant to me nevertheless to observe how little of selfishness there is on either side in this relationship—of that egotism which so often disfigures these relationships between man and woman, and causes them merely to take into consideration their own individual happiness or satisfaction. Not so in this case.

“I would I could make her happy,” he says, and for that reason he wishes to make her his own. “I could not make him happy, because I do not love him sufficiently,” she says, and therefore she will not accept his love. In both cases, the grounds are noble.

August 13th.—An enchanting excursion to Capri,