fault was grievous; it stung him to the soul: what
then was it not to her? Not now for his own shame merely, or the most,
did he lament it, but for the pity of it, that the lovely creature
should not be clean, had not deserved his adoration; that she was not
the ideal woman; that a glory had vanished from the earth; that she he
had loved was not in herself worthy. What then must be her sadness! And
this was his--the man's--response to her agony, this his balm for her
woe, his chivalry, his manhood--to dash her from him, and do his potent
part to fix forever upon her the stain which he bemoaned! Stained? Why
then did he not open his arms wide and take her, poor sad stain and all,
to the bosom of a love which, by the very agony of its own grief and
its pity over hers, would have burned her clean? What did it matter for
him? What was he? What was his honor? Had he had any, what fitter use
for honor than to sacrifice it for the redemption of a wife? That would
be to honor honor. But he had none. There was not a stone on the face of
the earth that would consent to be thrown at her by him!

Ah men! men! gentlemen! was there ever such a poor sneaking scarecrow of
an idol as that gaping straw-stuffed inanity you worship, and call
_honor_? It is not Honor; it is but _your_ honor. It is neither gold,
nor silver, nor honest copper, but a vile, worthless pinchbeck. It may
be, however, for I have not the honor to belong to any of your clubs,
that you no longer insult the word by using it at all. It may be you
have deposed it, and enthroned another word of less significance to you
still. But what the recognized slang of the day may be is
nothing--therefore unnecessary to what I have to say--which is, that the
man is a wretched ape who will utter a word about a woman's virtue, when
in himself, soul and body, there is not a clean spot; when his body
nothing but the furnace of the grave, his soul nothing but the eternal
fire can purify. For him is many a harlot far too good: she is yet
capable of devotion; she would, like her sisters of old, recognize the
Holy if she saw Him, while he would pass by his Maker with a rude stare,
or the dullness of the brute which he has so assiduously cultivated in
him.

By degrees Faber grew thoroughly disgusted with himself, then heartily
ashamed. Were it possible for me to give every finest shade and
gradation of the change he underwent, there would be still an
unrepresented mystery which I had not c