fe was mute and insensate, and sat silent
at his board. It must, no doubt, have been deadly dull, that house in
Aldersgate Street. Silence reigned, save when broken by the cries of the
younger Phillips sustaining chastisement. Milton had none of that noble
humanitarian spirit which had led Montaigne long years before him to
protest against the cowardly traditions of the schoolroom. After a month
of Aldersgate Street, Mrs. Milton begged to go home. Her wish was
granted, and she ran back to her ten brothers and sisters, and when her
leave of absence was up refused to return. Her husband was furiously
angry; and in a time so short as almost to enforce the belief that he
began the work during the honeymoon, was ready with his celebrated
pamphlet, _The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce restored to the good of
both sexes_. He is even said, with his accustomed courage, to have paid
attentions to a Miss Davis, who is described as a very handsome and witty
gentlewoman, and therefore not one likely to sit silent at his board; but
she was a sensible girl as well, and had no notion of a married suitor.
Of Milton's pamphlet it is everyone's duty to speak with profound
respect. It is a noble and passionate cry for a high ideal of married
life, which, so he argued, had by inflexible laws been changed into a
drooping and disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or
redemption. He shuddered at the thought of a man and woman being
condemned, for a mistake of judgment, to be bound together to their
unspeakable wearisomeness and despair, for, he says, not to be beloved
and yet retained is the greatest injury to a gentle spirit. Our present
doctrine of divorce, which sets the household captive free on payment of
a broken vow, but on no less ignoble terms, is not founded on the
congruous, and is indeed already discredited, if not disgraced.

This pamphlet on divorce marks the beginning of Milton's mental
isolation. Nobody had a word to say for it. Episcopalian, Presbyterian,
and Independent held his doctrine in as much abhorrence as did the
Catholic, and all alike regarded its author as either an impracticable
dreamer or worse. It was written certainly in too great haste, for his
errant wife, actuated by what motives cannot now be said, returned to her
allegiance, was mindful of her plighted troth, and, suddenly entering his
room, fell at his feet and begged to be forgiven. She was only nineteen,
and she said it was all