" The curate called everything Helen's. He
had a great contempt for the spirit of men who
marry rich wives and then lord it over their
money, as if they had done a fine thing in get-
ting hold of it, and the wife had been but
keeping it from its rightful owner. They do
not know what a confession their whole bear-
ing is, that but for their wives' money, they
would be the merest, poorest nobodies. So
small are they that even that suffices to make
them feel big ! But Helen did not like it,
especially when he would ask her if he might
have this or that, or do so and so. Any com-
mon man who heard him would have thought
him afraid of his wife; but a large-hearted
woman would at once have understood, as did
Helen, that it came all of his fine sense of truth,
and reality, and obligation. Still Helen would
have had him forget all such matters in con-
nection with her. They were one beyond
obligation. She had given him herself, and
what were bank-notes after that ? But he
thought of her always as an angel who had taken
him in, to comfort, and bless, and cherish him
with love, that he might the better do the work
of his God and hers ; therefore his obligation to
her was his glory. "

― George MacDonald , Paul Faber Paul Faber: Surgeon V1 (1879) Surgeon V1 (1879)