Often, oh! how often, an awkward and sophisticated youth and a prim maid with down-cast eyes will sit together, waltz together, and the one never get one inch the nearer to the other, though soul and mind and body crave a closer union. The youth would give the solid earth—nay, the solid earth would be naught—to gain him the courage to clasp the maiden to his breast; yet, so intense his awe, he would not strain a spider's web to risk the maid's good will.—The maid—who shall say what passes in her mind? That the youth should adventure, she could wish; yet his very hesitancy bespeaks his devotion true. Were he to fall about her neck, embrace her close, and demand the kiss of love—most like she would recoil aghast—at first! Yet if he desisted—she would also recoil aghast.—What should he do, poor awkward youth? what she?—One thing onlookers will do: smile, and simper, and smile again; but in their inmost heart of hearts they will envy that awkward youth, that simple maid. For because, in this the first symptoms of unsolicited and reciprocal love, they will recognize something of the divine and mystical nature of Love itself, of Love untrammeled by convention or law; of Love itself, in its purity, its intensity, its diffidence, its terrifying yet restraining force.
Ah! Love, not in every conflict art thou victor crowned. (2)
(2) Eros anikate machan.—Sophocles, Antigone, 781
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XIII. On Marriage and Married Life
ariston andri ktaema sympathaes gunae. —Hippothoon
Marriage laws are framed, not for or by the likes and dislikes of men and women, but by the exigencies of social, often of political, economy. Therefore
Men and women's likes and dislikes are obliged to conform to the usages demanded by social and political economy: so
In Turkey women accept with a good grace the custom of a plurality of wives; in Tibet men accept with good grace a plurality of husbands. In the western world .. . . Humph!
Always will there be everywhere prevalent a latent hostility between the likes and dislikes of men and women on one hand, and the laws enforced by a social and political community on the other. This is why