Other Things Being Equal [58]
This only by your people; by ours it would be worse, --for she will have raised a terrible barrier by renouncing her religion."
"I shall never renounce my religion, Father."
"Such a marriage would mean only that to the world; and so you would be cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they rightfully belong to where they are not wanted."
"Sir," interrupted Kemp, "allow me to show you wherein such a state of affairs would, if it should happen, be of no consequence. The friends we care for and who care for us will not drop off if we remain unchanged. Because I love your daughter and she loves me, and because we both desire our love to be honored in the sight of God and man, wherein have we erred? We shall still remain the same man and woman."
"Unhappily the world would not think so."
"Then let them hold to their bigoted opinion; it is valueless, and having each other, we can dispense with them."
"You speak in the heat of passion; and at such a time it would be impossible to make you understand the honeymoon of life is made up of more than two, and a third being inimical can make it wretched. The knowledge that people we respect hold aloof from us is bitter."
"But such knowledge," interrupted Ruth's sweet voice, "would be robbed of all bitterness when surrounded and hedged in by all that we love."
Her father looked in surprise at the brave face raised so earnestly to his.
"Very well," he responded; "count the world as nothing. You have just said, my Ruth, that you would not renounce your religion. How could that be when you have a Christian husband who would not renounce his?"
"I should hope he would not; I should have little respect for any man who would give up his sacred convictions because I have come into his life. As for my religion, I am a Jewess, and will die one. My God is fixed and unalterable; he is one and indivisible; to divide his divinity would be to deny his omnipotence. As to forms, you, Father, have bred in me a contempt for all but a few. Saturday will always be my Sabbath, no matter what convention would make me do. We have decided that writing or sewing or pleasuring, since it hurts no one, is no more a sin on that day than on another; to sit with idle hands and gossip or slander is more so. But on that day my heart always holds its Sabbath; this is the force of custom. Any day would do as well if we were used to it, --for who can tell which was the first and which the seventh counting from creation? On our New Year I should still feel that a holy cycle of time had passed; but I live only according to one record of time, and my New Year falls always on the 1st of January. Atonement is a sacred day to me; I could not desecrate it. Our services are magnificently beautiful, and I should feel like a culprit if debarred from their holiness. As to fasting, you and I have agreed that any physical punishment that keeps our thoughts one moment from God, and puts them on the feast that is to come, is mere sham and pretence. After these, Father, wherein does our religion show itself?"
"Surely," he replied with some bitterness, "we hold few Jewish rites. Well, and so you think you can keep these up? And you, Dr. Kemp?"
Dr. Kemp had been listening attentively while Ruth spoke. His eyes kindled brightly as he answered, --
"Why should she not? If all her orisons have made her as beautiful, body and soul, as she is to me, what is to prevent her from so continuing? And if my wife would permit me to go with her upon her holidays to your beautiful Temple, no one would listen more reverently than I. Loving her, what she finds worshipful could find nothing but respect in me."
Plainly Mr. Levice had forgotten the wellspring that was to enrich their lives; but he perceived that some impregnable armor encased them that made every shot of his harmless.
"I can understand," he ventured, "that no gentleman with self-respect would, at least outwardly, show disrespect for any person's religion. You, Doctor, might even come to regard with awe a
"I shall never renounce my religion, Father."
"Such a marriage would mean only that to the world; and so you would be cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they rightfully belong to where they are not wanted."
"Sir," interrupted Kemp, "allow me to show you wherein such a state of affairs would, if it should happen, be of no consequence. The friends we care for and who care for us will not drop off if we remain unchanged. Because I love your daughter and she loves me, and because we both desire our love to be honored in the sight of God and man, wherein have we erred? We shall still remain the same man and woman."
"Unhappily the world would not think so."
"Then let them hold to their bigoted opinion; it is valueless, and having each other, we can dispense with them."
"You speak in the heat of passion; and at such a time it would be impossible to make you understand the honeymoon of life is made up of more than two, and a third being inimical can make it wretched. The knowledge that people we respect hold aloof from us is bitter."
"But such knowledge," interrupted Ruth's sweet voice, "would be robbed of all bitterness when surrounded and hedged in by all that we love."
Her father looked in surprise at the brave face raised so earnestly to his.
"Very well," he responded; "count the world as nothing. You have just said, my Ruth, that you would not renounce your religion. How could that be when you have a Christian husband who would not renounce his?"
"I should hope he would not; I should have little respect for any man who would give up his sacred convictions because I have come into his life. As for my religion, I am a Jewess, and will die one. My God is fixed and unalterable; he is one and indivisible; to divide his divinity would be to deny his omnipotence. As to forms, you, Father, have bred in me a contempt for all but a few. Saturday will always be my Sabbath, no matter what convention would make me do. We have decided that writing or sewing or pleasuring, since it hurts no one, is no more a sin on that day than on another; to sit with idle hands and gossip or slander is more so. But on that day my heart always holds its Sabbath; this is the force of custom. Any day would do as well if we were used to it, --for who can tell which was the first and which the seventh counting from creation? On our New Year I should still feel that a holy cycle of time had passed; but I live only according to one record of time, and my New Year falls always on the 1st of January. Atonement is a sacred day to me; I could not desecrate it. Our services are magnificently beautiful, and I should feel like a culprit if debarred from their holiness. As to fasting, you and I have agreed that any physical punishment that keeps our thoughts one moment from God, and puts them on the feast that is to come, is mere sham and pretence. After these, Father, wherein does our religion show itself?"
"Surely," he replied with some bitterness, "we hold few Jewish rites. Well, and so you think you can keep these up? And you, Dr. Kemp?"
Dr. Kemp had been listening attentively while Ruth spoke. His eyes kindled brightly as he answered, --
"Why should she not? If all her orisons have made her as beautiful, body and soul, as she is to me, what is to prevent her from so continuing? And if my wife would permit me to go with her upon her holidays to your beautiful Temple, no one would listen more reverently than I. Loving her, what she finds worshipful could find nothing but respect in me."
Plainly Mr. Levice had forgotten the wellspring that was to enrich their lives; but he perceived that some impregnable armor encased them that made every shot of his harmless.
"I can understand," he ventured, "that no gentleman with self-respect would, at least outwardly, show disrespect for any person's religion. You, Doctor, might even come to regard with awe a