f
wretchedness is a title to compassion, Mistress Alice has a right to
charity and gentle usage. It _was not_ her fault that she could not
sympathize with her grand husband, in his studies and tastes, his lofty
life and voluntary death; it _was_ her misfortune that his steps
traversed plains high above her own moral and intellectual level. By
social theory they were intimate companions; in reality, no man and
woman in all England were wider apart. From his elevation he looked
down on her with commiseration that was heightened by curiosity and
amazement; and she daily writhed under his gracious condescension and
passionless urbanity; under her own consciousness of inferiority and
consequent self-scorn. He could no more sympathize with her petty aims,
than she with the high views and ambitions; and conjugal sympathy was
far more necessary to her than to him. His studious friends and clever
children afforded him an abundance of human fellowship; his public cares
and intellectual pursuits gave him constant diversion. He stood in such
small need of her, that if some benevolent fairy had suddenly endowed
her with grace, wisdom, and understanding, the sum of his satisfaction
would not have been perceptibly altered. But apart from him she had no
sufficient enjoyments. His genuine companionship was requisite for her
happiness; but for this society nature had endowed her with no fitness.
In the case of an unhappy marriage, where the unhappiness is not caused
by actual misconduct, but is solely due to incongruity of tastes and
capacities, it is cruel to assume that the superior person of the
ill-assorted couple has the stronger claim to sympathy.

Finding his wife less tractable than he wished, More withheld his
confidence from her, taking the most important steps of his life,
without either asking for her advice, or even announcing the course
which he was about to take. His resignation of the seals was announced
to her on the day _after_ his retirement from office, and in a manner
which, notwithstanding its drollery, would greatly pain any woman of
ordinary sensibility. The day following the date of his resignation was
a holiday; and in accordance with his usage the ex-Chancellor, together
with his household, attended service in Chelsea Church. On her way to
church, Lady More returned the greetings of her friends with a
stateliness not unseemly at that ceremonious time in one who was the
lady of the Lord High Chancellor. At the c