Have you had no experience of the sort in your life? Or
was it merely that she was obviously gentle and retiring,
and so made a silent claim upon all that was helpful and
manly in me? At any rate, I was conscious of it; and
again and again every time that I met her. How good is
that saying of some Russian writer that he who loves one
woman knows more of the whole sex than he who has had
passing relations with a thousand! I thought I knew
something of women. I suppose every medical student
does. But now I can see that I really knew nothing. My
knowledge was all external. I did not know the
woman soul, that crowning gift of Providence to man,
which, if we do not ourselves degrade it, will set an
edge to all that is good in us. I did not know how the
love of a woman will tinge a man's whole life and every
action with unselfishness. I did not know how easy it is
to be noble when some one else takes it for granted that
one will be so; or how wide and interesting life becomes
when viewed by four eyes instead of two. I had much to
learn, you see; but I think I have learned it.
It was natural that the death of poor Fred La Force
should make me intimate with the family. It was really
that cold hand which I grasped that morning as I sat by
his bed which drew me towards my happiness. I visited
them frequently, and we often went little excursions
together. Then my dear mother came down to stay with me
for a spell, and turned Miss Williams gray by looking for
dust in all sorts of improbable corners; or advancing
with a terrible silence, a broom in one hand and a shovel
in the other, to the attack of a spider's web which she
had marked down in the beer cellar.
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