They had known each other for some time, and
he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty
pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than
the annuity."
"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity."
"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The
charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she
regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from
somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel
herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages."
"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its
goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't
even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to
live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to
live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they
are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I
mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if
she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!"
"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write
them."
"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach;
only Turgenieff could write them.
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