erly absurd way in which the widow was
already disposed to look at questions of this sort.

For as in the old allegory of the gold and silver shield, about which
the two knights quarrelled, each is right according to the point from
which he looks: so about marriage; the question whether it is foolish or
good, wise or otherwise, depends upon the point of view from which you
regard it. If it means a snug house in Belgravia, and pretty little
dinner-parties, and a pretty little brougham to drive in the Park, and
a decent provision not only for the young people, but for the little
Belgravians to come; and if these are the necessaries of life (and they
are with many honest people), to talk of any other arrangement is an
absurdity: of love in lodgings--a babyish folly of affection: that can't
pay coach-hire or afford a decent milliner--as mere wicked balderdash
and childish romance. If on the other hand your opinion is that people,
not with an assured subsistence, but with a fair chance to obtain it,
and with the stimulus of hope, health, and strong affection, may take
the chance of Fortune for better or worse, and share its good or its
evil together, the polite theory then becomes an absurdity in its turn:
worse than an absurdity, a blasphemy almost, and doubt of Providence;
and a man who waits to make his chosen woman happy, until he can drive
her to church in a neat little carriage with a pair of horses, is no
better than a coward or a trifler, who is neither worthy of love nor of
fortune.

I don't say that the town folks are not right, but Helen Pendennis was
a country-bred woman, and the book of life, as she interpreted it, told
her a different story to that page which is read in cities. Like most
soft and sentimental women, matchmaking, in general, formed a great
part of her thoughts, and I daresay she had begun to speculate about
her son's falling in love and marrying long before the subject had ever
entered into the brains of the young gentleman. It pleased her (with
that dismal pleasure which the idea of sacrificing themselves gives to
certain women) to think of the day when she would give up all to Pen,
and he should bring his wife home, and she would surrender the keys and
the best bedroom, and go and sit at the side of the table, and see him
happy. What did she want in life, but to see the lad prosper? As an
empress certainly was not too good for him, and would be honoured by
becoming Mrs. Pen; so if he selected