"Now sit thee here and gaze on the placid lake and quiet your troubled spirit, while I demolish your 'perfectly good' arguments.

In the first place, you are now my wife, and you have a right to take anything I offer, if you care for it or can use it in any manner.

In the second, you must recognize a difference in our positions.
What seems nothing to you means all the world to me, and you are less than human if you deprive me of the joy of expressing feelings I am in honour bound to keep in my heart, by these little material offerings.

In the third place, I inherited over six hundred acres of land and water, please observe the water----it is now in evidence on your left.

All my life I have been taught to be frugal, economical, and to work.