BOTH Emerson and his wife came up from this experience changed in themselves and toward each other.  A few days had matured them beyond what might have been looked for in as many years.  Life suddenly put on more sober hues, and the future laid off its smiles and beckonings onward to greener fields and mountain-heights of felicity.  There was a certain air of manly self-confidence, a firmer, more deliberate way of expressing himself on all subjects, and an evidence of mental clearness and strength, which gave to Irene the impression of power and superiority not wholly agreeable to her self-love, yet awakening emotions of pride in her husband when she contrasted him with other men.  As a man among men, he was, as he had ever been, her beau ideal; but as a husband, she felt a daily increasing spirit of resistance and antagonism, and it required constant watchfulness over herself to prevent this feeling from exhibiting itself in act.

On the part of Emerson, the more he thought about this subject of the husband’s relative duties and prerogatives—­thought as a man and as a lawyer—­the more strongly did he feel about it, and the more tenacious of his assumed rights did he become.  Matters which seemed in the beginning of such light importance as scarcely to attract his attention, now loomed up before him as things of moment.  Thus, if he spoke of their doing some particular thing in a certain way, and Irene suggested a different way, instead of yielding to her view, he would insist upon his own.  If she tried to show him a reason why her way was best, he would give no weight to her argument or representation.  On the other hand, it is but just to say that he rarely opposed her independent suggestions or interfered with her freedom; and if she had been as considerate toward him, the danger of trouble would have been lessened.

It is the little foxes that spoil the tender grapes, and so it is the little reactions of two spirits against each other that spoil the tender blossoms of love and destroy the promised vintage.  Steadily, day by day, and week by week, were these light reactions marring the happiness of our undisciplined young friends, and destroying in them germ after germ, and bud after bud, which, if left to growth and development, would have brought forth ripe, luscious fruit in the later summer of their lives.  Trifles, light as air were noticed, and their importance magnified.  Words, looks, actions, insignificant in themselves, were made to represent states of will or antagonism which really had no existence.

Unhappily for their peace, Irene had a brooding disposition.  She held in her memory utterances and actions forgotten by her husband, and, by dwelling upon, magnified and gave them an importance to which they were not entitled.  Still more unhappily for their peace, Irene met about this time, and became attached to, a lady of fine intellectual attainments and fascinating manners, who was an extremist in opinion on the subject of sexual