To Gwendolen, who even in the freedom of her maiden time, had had very faint glimpses of any heroism or sublimity, the medium that now thrust itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to him. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often virtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for a human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them--like a piece of yellow and wavy glass that distorts form and makes color an affliction. Their trivial sentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless _ennui_, may be making somebody else's life no better than a promenade through a pantheon of ugly idols. Gwendolen had that kind of window before her, affecting the distant equally with the near. Some unhappy wives are soothed by the possibility that they may become mothers; but Gwendolen felt that to desire a child for herself would have been a consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She was reduced to dread lest she should become a mother. It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was a refuge from worse temptation.

To Gwendolen, the medium that now thrust itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to him. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady who barely passes for a human being, with petty standards, low suspicions and loveless boredom, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them. Gwendolen had that kind of window before her.
Some unhappy wives are soothed by the possibility of becoming mothers; but Gwendolen felt that to desire a child would have meant consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She dreaded becoming a mother. It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance: her only gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on an accident was a refuge from worse temptation.
