“I might be both of these,” he said, “in case I blamed the poor souls for the life they lead. But did I blame them? Nay, for in this world, Between youth’s immature credulity, That dares to think but what some guardian thinks, And manhood’s faith mature that thinks for itself, A realm there is where will must learn to act Through doubt and danger; where the character, First wean’d from oversight, must learn to choose. Then, like a tottering child it yearns to cling To one whose greater power can for it act. Its moods determine that to which they cling. Some girls are giddy:—they embrace a lover. And some are gloomy:—they beset a priest. He, like the first, may ply his own designs, May take advantage of their weaker state, And capture them for veils, if not for vice.” “But marriage is a capture, too,” I said. “If so,” he answer’d, “yet a natural state, Made statelier through authority of law, That, otherwise, might authorize the wrong;— A state to which, as not to convent life, All social instincts prompt; may prompt the more The more one’s years. Who then can it forswear?— Think you a maid, with half her moods unform’d At twenty, can conceive what thoughts may come To turn or torture her at thirty-five?— “But what, Pauline, Pauline,—you turning pale!— In earnest, were you!—Had you really thought?— In God’s name, darling, this could never be!— Think only—Wherefore now?” “Because,” I said, “I hoped some good to do.” “And do you deem,” He ask’d, “that then the Virgin did no good, When nursing her sweet babe?—and was no saint? And what of Christ, who ate and drank with all, Call’d glutton and a bibber, yes, of wine?— Was He no saint?—What think you mortals need— To learn of life that never can be theirs? Nay, nay, to learn of life, inspired by love, Which all can live, made better by its power. If you a saint would be, oh, do not seek For truth so sunder’d from the common thought, For love that knows no common sympathies.” XLI. “Are some,” I said, “not call’d in special ways To nurse and tend the aged, sick, and poor?”