I even doubt
my love of God, because I feel too lightly the love of my neighbour. I
am often reminded that the mystic pleasures may lull my conscience on
this point. You, Maria, you live your faith; you visit the sick, work
for the poor, you comfort, you instruct. I do nothing."
"I am one with you," Maria whispered. "You made me what I am. Besides,
you distribute the alms of the intellect."
"No, no! Those words applied to me are presumptuous!" Maria knew that
the loving sense of human fraternity was not strong in Glovanni. She
felt--and she was loath to confess it even to herself--that this
deficiency incapacitated her husband for the successful fulfilment of
that great religious apostolate which should have resulted from his
intellectual powers, and that deep and enlightened faith, which in him
was more the fruit of genius, of study, of love of the divine, than of
tradition or habit. She reproached herself for having sometimes rejoiced
at Giovanni's coldness towards his fellows, for it lent a precious
flavour to the treasures of affection he lavished upon herself.
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