"That is because the great have too many things to look to besides love; and the lowly have too few. The rich have their lighted palaces to bask in, as well as the sunshine; and they must have a host of admirers, as well as one bosom friend. And when the poor man finds that there is one bliss that no power on earth can shut him out from, and one that drives out all evils for the time--one that makes him forget the noon-day heats, and one that tempers the keen north wind, and makes him walk at his full height when his superiors lounge past him in the street--no wonder he is eager to meet it, and jogs the time-glass to make it come at the soonest. If such a man is imprudent, I had rather be he than one that first lets it slip through cowardice, and would then bring it back to gratify his low ambition!" "And for those who let it go by for conscience sake, and do not ask for it again?" "Why, they are happy in having learned what _the one feeling is that life is worth living for_. They may make themselves happy upon it for ever, after that. Oh! Effie, you would not believe, nothing could make you believe, what I was the day before and the day after I saw that sudden change of look of yours that told me all. The one day, I was shrinking inwardly from everything I had to do, and every word of my father's, and everybody I met; and was always trying to make myself happy in myself alone, with the sense of God being near me and with me. The other day, I looked down upon everybody, in a kindly way; and yet I looked up to them, too, for I felt a respect that I never knew before for all that were suffering and enjoying; and I felt as if I could have brought the whole world nearer to God, if they would have listened to me. I shall never forget the best moment of all--when my mind had suddenly ceased being in a great tumult, which had as much pain as pleasure in it. When I said distinctly to myself, 'She loves me,' Heaven came down round about me that minute."[4] [4] _Illustrations of Political Economy_: "A Tale of the Tyne," pp. 54, _et seq._ This passage is doubly interesting from the fact that Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the Population Law, sent specially to thank her for having written it. This tells how Harriet Martineau could love in her youth. Perhaps the stream ran all the more powerfully for its course being checked; for it was over three years after she met and became attached to Mr. Worthington before their love was allowed to be declared, and their engagement was permitted--a long period for hope and fear to do their painful office in the soul, a long test of the reality of the love on both sides.