"
She was silent a moment.
"'The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.'
Surely the old English spirit has cast its madness, and begins to speak
once more as it spoke in Naseby fights and Smithfield fires!"
"And yet you would quench it in me amid the enervating climate of the
tropics."
"Need it be quenched there? Was it quenched in Drake, in Hawkins, in the
conquerors of Hindostan? Weakness, like strength, is from within, of the
spirit, and not of sunshine. I would send you thither, that you may gain
new strength, new knowledge to carry out your dream and mine. Do not refuse
me the honour of preserving you. Do not forbid me to employ my wealth in
the only way which reconciles my conscience to the possession of it. I have
saved many a woman already; and this one thing remained--the highest of all
my hopes and longings--that God would allow me, ere I die, to save a man.
I have longed to find some noble soul, as Carlyle says, fallen down by the
wayside, and lift it up, and heal its wounds, and teach it the secret of
its heavenly birthright, and consecrate it to its King in heaven.
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