The tradesmen's daughters in
the upper town took pains to show him how high above him they were,
and women of better position spoke to him with a kind condescension
that made him feel the gulf that separated them; but to one and
all he spoke with the frankness of manly freedom.
But he had now arrived at that season when, in the order of things,
a man is compelled to have at least a glimmer of the life which
consists in sharing life with another. When once, through the thousand
unknown paths of creation, the human being is so far divided from
God that his individuality is secured, it has become yet more
needful that the crust gathered around him in the process should be
broken; and the love between man and woman arising from a difference
deep in the heart of God, and essential to the very being of each
--for by no words can I express my scorn of the evil fancy that
the distinction between them is solely or even primarily physical
--is one of his most powerful forces for blasting the wall of
separation, and first step towards the universal harmony of twain
making one. That love should be capable of ending in such vermiculate
results as too often appear, is no more against the loveliness of
the divine idea, than that the forms of man and woman, the spirit
gone from them, should degenerate to such things as may not be
looked upon. There is no plainer sign of the need of a God, than
the possible fate of love. The celestial Cupido may soar aloft on
seraph wings that assert his origin, or fall down on the belly of
a snake and creep to hell.
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