美女与野兽(下).pdfVIP

美女与野兽 TWIN - LOVE . When John Vincent, after waiting twelve years, married Phebe Etheridge, the whole neighborhood experienced that sense of relief and satisfaction which follows the triumph of the right . Not that the fact of a true love is ever generally recognized and respected when it is first discovered; for there is a perverse quali- ty in American human nature which will not accept the existence 1 of any fine, unselfish passion, until it has been tested and estab- lished 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 commu- nity .The girls and boys, and some of the matrons, ranged them- selves at once on the side of the lovers, but a large maj ority of the older men and a few of the y ounger supported the tyrannical fa- ther . 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 . BEAUTY AND THE BEAST When low natures live (as they almost invariably do) wholly in the present, they neither take tenderness from the past nor warn- ing from the possibilities of the future .It is the ex ceptional men and women who remember their youth .So, these lovers received a nearly equal amount of sympathy and condemnation ; and only slowly , partly through their quiet fidelity and patience, and partly through the improvement in John Vincents worldly circum- stances, was the balance changed .Old Reuben remained an un- flinching despot to the last : if any relenting softness touched his hear