,
Without a reason potent as your own,
Trifled with danger. But I cannot make
A god of form, an idol crushing me.
Unlike the church, I look on marriage as
A civil contract, not a sacrament,[6]
Indissoluble, spite of every wrong;
The high and holy purposes of marriage
Are not fulfilled in instances where each
Helps to demoralize or blight the other;
Let it then stand, like other contracts, on
A basis purely personal and legal.

"'Oh! how we hug the fictions we are born to!
Challenging never, never testing them;
Accepting them as irreversible;
Part of God's order, not to be improved;
Placing the form above the informing spirit,
The outward show above the inward life;
A hollow lie, well varnished, well played out,
Above the pure, the everlasting truth;
Fancying Nature is not Nature still,
Because repressed, or cheated, or concealed;
Juggling ourselves with frauds a very child,
Yet unperverted, readily would pierce!

"'Consider my own case: a month ago,
See me a maniac, rushing forth to find
A wife who loved me not; my heart all swollen
With rage against the man to whom I owed
Exposure of her falsehood; ah, how blind!
To chase a form from which the soul had fled!
If I grew sane at length, you, Percival,
And the mere presence of our little nurse
Have brought me light and healing. I am cured,
Thank Heaven, and can exult at my release.

"'Here I paused. Percival made no reply,
But sat like one absorbed. I paced the floor
Awhile, and then confronting him resumed:--
Your scruples daunt you still; well, there's a way
To free you from the meshes of the law:
On my return, I'll go to Albany,
Where war's financial sinews, as you know,
Are those of legislation equally;
I'll have a law put through to meet your case;
To strip away these toils. I can; I will!--
Percival almost stunned me with his No!
Make _me_ a gutter, adding more pollution
To the fount of public justice? Never! No!
I would not feed corruption with a bribe,
To win release to-morrow. Such a cure
Would be, my friend, far worse than the disease.--
Then there's no way, said I; and so, farewell!
The carriage waits to take me to the station.--
I shall not say farewell until we part
Beside the carriage-door, said he: you'll take
Your leave of Mary?--Yes, I go to seek her.--
And this, Miss Mary, is a full report
Of all that passed between my frie