Forever wilt thou love and she be fair!

“Forever wilt thou love and she be fair!” is the line through which Philip Carey gives poetic form to his sudden vision of marriage with Sally Athelny. Its significance lies in the way it transforms a practical decision into an ideal of lasting love: Philip imagines not only a home and family, but a life made beautiful by devotion and imagination.

The phrase in Philip’s decision

Philip reaches the line after deciding that he cannot leave Sally unhappy. Though reason tells him that accepting her would be a sacrifice, he feels unable to repay her trust and kindness with abandonment; he also remembers that her parents have treated him well. He therefore resolves to marry her quickly and to write to Doctor South, saying that he will accept the medical position if the offer remains open. The phrase belongs to this inward turn from reluctance to commitment: it names the emotional beauty Philip finds in choosing a life with Sally.

An imagined future

The line gathers together the future Philip pictures that evening. He sees a small house within sight of the sea, ships passing toward lands he will never know, and quiet evenings with Sally in a sitting-room where they can watch the water. He imagines her working beside him under a shaded lamp, their patients among the fishermen and their wives, and the couple sharing in the pleasures and troubles of village life. In that setting, the phrase makes permanence seem not abstract but domestic: love is attached to a home, shared work, and ordinary companionship.

Love, beauty, and the unborn child

Philip’s imagined marriage is already bound to the child Sally is carrying, whom he thinks of as his own. He pictures the child’s perfect limbs and imagines passing on the dreams of a rich and varied life. The quoted line’s promise that the beloved will remain fair resonates with this idealized vision, in which love preserves beauty against the uncertainties of experience. Philip even thinks of his high hopes as his wedding gift, and the thought of self-sacrifice uplifts him. The phrase thus expresses less a settled knowledge of married life than the radiant future he is making for himself in anticipation.

Imagination and the life already lived

Philip connects this hope with Cronshaw’s teaching that imagination can make a person master of space and time. He then accepts the hardships of his past, including the deformity that had made life difficult, and sees that it also deepened his capacity for introspection and his appreciation of beauty, art, literature, and human experience. The line stands at the crest of that acceptance: it offers a consoling image of love’s permanence, while the scene makes clear that the image is being fashioned by Philip’s imagination before the marriage has occurred.