My Wife and I by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe [Stowe, Harriet Beecher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"No; I do not," said I; "for me, for you, for many like us, these are the true forms, and the best; but we must remember that others have just as sacred associations, and are as dearly attached to other modes of worship as we to these."

"Then you really do prefer them yourself?"

"Well, Miss Van Arsdel, I unite with the church of my father and mother, because I was brought up in it; yet if I were to choose another, it would be yours."

She looked pleased, and I added: "It seems to me one of the most beautiful things about it is a daily service."

"Yes," she said, "and it is pleasant to have churches where you feel that worship is daily offered, whether people attend or not. There was something sacred and beautiful about the Church of St. Peter's in Rome—to think that at every hour of day or night worship was going on in it. I used to like to think of it when I awoke nights—that they were praying and adoring there—in this cold, dreary world; it seems as if it was like a Father's house, always light, and warm, and open."

"There is a beauty and use in all these forms and images," I said; "and I think if we are wise, we may take comfort in them all, without being enslaved by any."

Here our interview closed, as with a graceful salutation she left me at the door of her house.

The smile she gave me was so bright and heart-warm, that it lightened all my work through the day; a subtle sense of a new and charming companionship began to shed itself through all my labors, and, unconsciously and unwatched, commenced that process of double thought which made everything I read or wrote suggest something I wanted to say to her. The reader will not, therefore, wonder that I proved my sense of the beauty of a daily morning service by going with great regularity after this, and as regularly walking home with my enchanting companion.

I was innocently surprised to find how interesting the morning scenery in prosaic old New York had become. It was April, and the buds in the Park were swelling, and the green grass springing in the cracks of the pavement, and little sparrows twittered and nestled in the ivy that embowered the church—and all these things had a strange, new charm for me. I told myself, every day, that I was not in love with Eva Van Arsdel, or going to be; I took myself to witness that all our conversation was on the most correct and dispassionate subjects, and not in the slightest degree inclining to any vanity of that nature. Since then, I have learned that Eva was the kind of woman with whom it made no difference what the subject matter of conversation was. It might be religion, or politics, or conic sections, but the animus of it was sure to be the same thing. It was her vital magnetism that gave the interest.

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