It is not for nothing that relationships with others appear to me in
the light of a duty, at least in the initial stages, rather than a
pleasure.
And yet I reflect that I should doubtless be a better man, even with a
shrewish wife and a handful of heavy, unattractive children. I should
have to scheme for them, to make things easier for them, to work for
them, to recommend them, to cherish them, to love them. These dear
transforming burdens are denied me. And yet would the sternest and
severest mentor in the world bid me marry without love, for the sake of
its effect on my character? "No," he would say, "not that! but let
yourself go, be rash, fall in love, marry in haste! It is your only
salvation." But that is like telling a dwarf that it is his only
salvation to be six feet high--it cannot be done by taking thought. No
one can see more acutely and clearly, in more terrible and melancholy
detail, than myself what one misses. Call it coldness, call it
indifference, call it cowardice--the matter is not mended. If one is
cold, one does not grow hot by pretending to perspire; if one is
indifferent, one does not become enthusiastic by indulging in hollow
rhetoric. If one is cowardly, one can only improve by facing a
necessary danger, not by thrusting oneself into perilous situations. To
marry without love, for the sake of the discipline, is as if a dizzy
man should adventure himself alone upon the Matterhorn; the rashness of
proved incapacity is not courage, but a detestable snobbishness.
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