I'm quite serious, though. It may be that one grows too critical as the years go on and possesses too little healthy instinct. And I consider instinct the best guarantee of a suitable choice.
HOFFMANN
[Frivolously.] Oh, it'll be found again some day—[laughing]—the necessary instinct, I mean.
LOTH
And, after all, what have I to offer a woman? I doubt more and more whether I ought to expect any woman to content herself with that small part of my personality which does not belong to my life's work. Then, too, I'm afraid of the cares which a family brings.
HOFFMANN
Wh-at? The cares of a married man? Haven't you a head, and arms, eh?
LOTH
Obviously. But, as I've tried to tell you, my productive power belongs, for the greater part, to my life's work and will always belong to it. Hence it is no longer mine. Then, too, there would be peculiar difficulties …