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346 SKETCHES.
me, is it not an every-day story, this one which I have
sketched here; is it not the history of nine married couples
out of ten? Where the mutual relation proceeds in this
downward direction, married life is transformed into that
Dead Sea on whose shore no flower is thriving, no bird is
singing ; over whose surface pestilential vapors are hang-
ing, and in whose depths one cai occasionally descry the
ruins of a once beautiful, but accursed city. Married life
is as little stationary on earth as any other life. Within
it a slow but continual change upwards or downwards
‘takes place, according to the will or the fault of the hus-
band or the wife. The causes may be different in all mar-
riages, but in all there are moments, crises, from which we
can guess how time advances, what “the clock strikes.”
And in them all arises a temptation, when the first flame
has burnt down, to let the deeper union dissolve, let the
spirit fly. And it will do so.
“ Should not the heavenly Amor then
Hold fast his Psyche with new bridal kiss,”
and consecrate her to a higher, truer union?
There will not be wanting Nicodemus’-heads in the world,
who will ask doubtingly, “ How can these things be?”
We have little else to reply hereto than this: That we
know that they are; but we know no other fundamental
cause for it than the one upon which every good result de-
pends, the driving-wheel in life’s steam-engine, the axis of
life’s revolving-light, the earnest, hearty w7/l of the parties
concerned. But to continue my story. I wish (I whisper this.
to myself) that I could avoid lengthening it by reflections,
which the reader can make himself without my assistance.
The first subject of discord which arose between Axel
and Ellina, and which we have alluded to, was the education
of the boys. The father averred that the mother petted,
indulged, in a word, spoilt them. Very possibly he was
right. However, I believe that she did it in the right way.
The boys were obedient and adored their mother. No
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