Not that
the fact of a true love is ever generally recognized and respected
when it is first discovered; for there is a perverse quality in
American human nature which will not accept the existence of any
fine, unselfish passion, until it has been tested and established
beyond peradventure. There were two views of the case when John
Vincent's love for Phebe, and old Reuben Etheridge's hard
prohibition of the match, first became known to the community. The
girls and boys, and some of the matrons, ranged themselves at once
on the side of the lovers, but a large majority of the older men
and a few of the younger supported the tyrannical father.
Reuben Etheridge was rich, and, in addition to what his daughter
would naturally inherit from him, she already possessed more than
her lover, at the time of their betrothal. This in the eyes
of one class was a sufficient reason for the father's hostility.
When low natures live (as they almost invariably do) wholly in the
present, they neither take tenderness from the past nor warning
from the possibilities of the future.
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