This benumbed condition continued through a large portion of a sleepless night. The unintermitted repetition of the query, 'How shall I win her love?' tortured me into an agony like that experienced in a nightmare dream. Slowly and gradually my reason began to work, and I methodically commenced to elaborate a system by which to acquire what was now the chief object of my life,--my wife's _love_. I arose in the morning determined to obtain this, even should every other pursuit be relinquished and every other desire sacrificed. My system was formed. Life thereafter was to be devoted to it.
My first object was to create a change in her feelings toward my rival;--not to destroy her love for him,--of the futility of such an attempt I was aware,--but to modify the cold, desperate, and resentful feeling of disappointment she entertained; to superimpose upon her thwarted passion, which would continue to regard him as a hero of romance, another condition of feeling, that should bring him before her in a different aspect, and to rouse her listlessness by suggesting something to be done which should be connected with him,--the only incentive, I was assured, sufficiently powerful to stimulate her to action. I had a patient whom I intended to treat in the most delicate and scientific manner. I determined to appeal to her benevolence,--a feeling which, though latent, always exists in a true woman. My disconsolate hero of romance was to be brought down and made a mortal, capable of receiving favors. Instead of being the object of love, he was to become one of charity.
'My dear,' said I, one evening, with a suppressed yawn, as I was perusing a magazine, 'I have been reading a stupid account of the pictures and statues, and so on, in Florence. These things are very fine, doubtless, to those who understand and appreciate them. My early education in aesthetics was neglected; or rather the hard necessities of my youth allowed me no opportunity to cultivate them. But it is a good thing to encourage art, and I have been thinking it might be well for us to have some paintings and statuary. If I attempt to select them I shall be tricked and bamboozled into purchasing mere daubs and botches. Would it not be well to engage some person of judgment--perhaps an artist--to go to Italy and make an investment for us? I know none such, but you have been more associated with artists, and if you can secure one, I will give him _carte blanche_. Will you please make some inquiries?'