EGERTON (after a moment's thought).—"No, not the least."
HARLEY.—"What, then, attaches you so much to this life,—constant drudgery, constant warfare, the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do not please you?"
EGERTON.—"What? Custom."
HARLEY.—"Martyr."
EGERTON.—"You say it: but turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to leave England next week?"
HARLEY (moodily).—-"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to marry."
EGERTON.—" Whom?"
HARLEY (seriously).—" Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I cannot marry a dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom'?"
EGERTON.—"You do not search for her."
HARLEY. "Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet sits down and says, 'I will write a poem'? What man looks out and says, 'I will fall in love'? No! Happiness, as the great German tells us, 'falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love."