“What matters it, if you give me yourself in return?”

“It matters much.  If we are not strong for ourselves, we are not strength to each other.  If we have no reserve force, we shall in time consume each other’s life.  We can never be wholly another’s.”

“Am I not wholly yours, dear Hugh?” she said, raising her eyes tenderly to his, in that summer twilight.

“Not all mine, but all that I can receive.”

“It may be true, but it seems cold to me,” she replied, a little sadly.

“Too much philosophy and not enough love for your tender woman nature, is it not, darling?”

“I think you have explained it.  I feel as though you were drifting away from me, Hugh, when you talk as you do to-night.  Although I dearly love progress and enlarged views of life, I do not like many of the questions that are being agitated in reference to marriage.”

“Because you do not take comprehensive views of the matter.  I can, I think, set you clear on the whole subject, and divorce from your mind the thought that liberty is license.  Liberty, in its full, true meaning, is the pure action of a true manhood, in obedience to the laws of the individual.  For a simple illustration, look at our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Danforth.  She, as you well know, is an ambitious woman; smart, and rather above the majority of her neighbors, intellectually, but not spiritually.  Her husband is a kind-hearted man, content to fill an ordinary station in life, but spiritually far her superior.  His nature is rich in affection; her nature is cold and intellectual.  He knows nothing of other woman’s views, consequently has no standard by which to form an estimate of those of his wife.  If she was wise, as well as sharp, she would see that she is standing in her own light; for the man whom she wishes to look upon her, and her only, will soon be a pure negation, a mere machine, an echo of her own jealousy and selfish pride.  Now, freedom, or his liberty, would give him the right to mingle and converse with other women; then he would know what his wife was to him, while he would retain himself and give to her his manhood, instead of the mere return of her own self.  At present he dare not utter a word to which she does not fully subscribe.  She talks of his ‘love’ for her; it should be his ‘servility.’  They live in too close relation to be all they might to each other.  I have heard her proudly assert, that he never spent an evening from home!  I think they are both to be pitied; but, am I making the subject of freedom in any degree clear to your mind, my patient wife?”

“Yes, I begin to see that it is higher and nobler to be free, and far purer than I supposed.”