Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/244

228 "That may do for a man; I find no compensation except in memory."

I must put that down as a weakness. Whoever has sufficient resources within himself is able to make himself independent of his surroundings. And so long as one can still find like-minded people one can be recompensed in a quiet way for everything that one misses in the doings of the world at large.

"I admit that to some degree, but where does one meet here the like-minded people? Those who seek happiness in amassing wealth, or in dissipation, or in a narrow club life, find plenty of like-minded companions; but how many people have you met so far who make higher demands on life and whose intellectual and emotional gifts are of an order to make mutual enjoyment possible? I have known people who in Europe were most excellent companions, and most desirable for social intercourse; here find them after a few years so changed, so strange, so empty, so blunted, so devoid of aspirations, so common-place that I am glad to have them keep away from me. But the few whom I could recognize as like-minded live isolated and scattered throughout this large expanse of country, harboring the same lonely thoughts that I and others do, but suffer likewise from the same fate that prevents us from meeting and associating with each other. When I consider that in this vast country there are perhaps half a dozen people to whom I could feel drawn with my whole soul, and that even these few