Very
often--very, very often--the impossibilities are
achieved by those who in their ignorance advance not
boldly but unconcernedly where a wiser man or woman
would shrink and retreat. Fortunate indeed is he or
she who in a crisis is by chance equipped with neither
too little nor too much knowledge--who knows enough
to enable him to advance, but does not know enough to
appreciate how perilous, how foolhardy, how harsh and
cruel, advance will be. Mildred was in this instance thus
fortunate--unfortunate, she was presently to think it.
She knew enough about loveless marriage to shrink
from it. She did not know enough about what poverty,
moneylessness, and friendlessness mean in the actuality
to a woman bred as she had been. She imagined
she knew--and sick at heart her notion of poverty
made her. But imagination was only faintest
foreshadowing of actuality. If she had known, she would
have yielded to the temptation that was almost too
strong for her. And if she had yielded--what then?
Not such a repulsive lot, as our comfortable classes look
at it.
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