His seclusion from what is called the
world had brought him into larger and closer contact with what is
really the world. The breakers upon reef and shore may be the
ocean to some, but he who would know the ocean indeed must leave
them afar, sinking into silence, and sail into wider and lonelier
spaces. Through Godfrey, Mary came to know of a land never
promised, yet open--a land of whose nature even she had never
dreamed--a land of the spirit, flowing with milk and honey--a
land of which the fashionable world knows little more than the
dwellers in the back slums, although it imagines it lying, with
the kingdoms of the earth, at its feet.
As regards her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of
unseen doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought
against presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one
who possessed power over her own spirit--rare gift, given to none
but those who do something toward the taking of it. She was able
in no small measure to order her own thoughts. Without any theory
of self-rule, she yet ruled her Self. She was not one to slip
about in the saddle, or let go the reins for a kick and a plunge
or two. There was the thing that should be, and the thing that
should not be; the thing that was reasonable, and the thing that
was absurd. Add to all this, that she believed she saw in Mr.
Wardour's behavior to his cousin, in the careful gentleness
evident through all the severity of the schoolmaster, the
presence of a deeper feeling, that might one day blossom to the
bliss of her friend--and we need not wonder if Mary's heart
remained calm in the very floods of its gratitude; while the
truth she gathered by aid of the intercourse, enlarging her
strength, enlarged likewise the composure that comes of strength.
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