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"I don't know who is responsible for what has taken place."

"Oh, you have but to look at her, and you can't help guessing. &hellip; Besides, women always love longer and more deeply. It is through love that they attain their highest degree of culture; and I must acknowledge that, so far as culture goes, they have outstripped men; a woman's instinct stands higher than the wisdom of a man."

"Why, Stephen, from where have you got this attitude of benevolent optimism towards woman?"

"Of tragical pessimism, I should say," he answered, gayly, but then was lost in a brown study.

How am I to know? Very likely this also is love. And a good thing, too, that it came to me: I was so lonely then and so crushed with longing!

Now and then I enjoy emotions of super-human delight, of ecstatic bewilderment. And then again there flutter about me, like black moths, certain bitter self-reproaches for the past, and maddening apprehensions as to the future.—Really, it is too ridiculous! &hellip;