Whoever she was, she would eat him away altogether, or eat away years of him. When he found himself out—that he could not accept himself with her—it might be too late. He was stubborn. The ordeal would continue—brave front and eroding guts. What should a man do?
I am not my brother's keeper.
How often that wretched phrase has been used as the alibi for vicious neglect!
How rarely has it served in the intended sense. It is but a warning to Peeping Toms, to Meddlesome Matties and Interfering In-Laws, Overweening Do-gooders, Paul Prys, the Rabble of the Self-righteous.
Would God the Peepul understood the Words of Jesus had one meaning, always, and often the opposite of the convenient, accepted interpretation; that their Christ appreciated how nothing can be truly said of the Father that does not make a suitable apothegm for Beelzebub!
Who asked them to interpret, anyway?
He told them to act.
I am not my brother's keeper.
The Holy Writ that John Sumner never comprehended, or Anthony Comstock, old Cotton Mather, and a dozen billion more.