There
are others to whom sorrow is but a reality, for which all
expression seems inadequate.
Corona was such a woman, too strong to suffer little, too
unimaginative to suffer poetically. There are those who might say
that she exaggerated the gravity of the position, that, since
Giovanni had always been faithful to her, had acknowledged his
error and repented of it so sincerely, there was no reason why she
should not love him as before. The answer is very simple. The
highest kind of love not only implies the highest trust in the
person loved, but demands it in return; the two conditions are as
necessary to each other as body and soul, so that if one is
removed from the other, the whole love dies. Our relations with
our fellow-creatures are reciprocal in effect, whatever morality
may require in theory, from the commonest intercourse between mere
acquaintances to the bond between man and wife. An honest man will
always hesitate to believe another unless he himself is believed.
Humanity gives little, on the whole, unless it expects a return;
still less will men continue to give when their gifts have been
denounced to them as false, no matter what apology is offered
alter the mistake has been discovered. Corona was very human, and
being outwardly cold, she was inwardly more sensitive to suspicion
than very expansive women can ever be.
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