“No,” I said, “it isn’t; but it is a sort of basis for my theory. First, we establish the fact that the interesting and precious and desirable self isn’t ‘inside.’ Then, don’t you see, it must be outside. Well, it is outside. It doesn’t exist till it gets outside. All the differentiation, the distinction, the qualities, which you and I value, are outside and are created by means analogous to the means of art. In so far as people—any people, married or otherwise—really give themselves adequately to each other in love or in friendship, and impart happiness with the gift, they give a self that is externalized, objectified, and tangible—so to speak—in some form of useful or beautiful activity, which occasions no insatiable and consuming fever, but the real joy of benefits given and received and the delight of a loveliness that descends on the contemplative eye like the free grace of God.”
“Your theory improves,” said Cornelia; “I don’t wholly understand it; but it improves.”
VI
A THEORY OF HAPPINESS
The foam was now running high up the beach. I splashed straight through it, in spite of my shoes. But Cornelia, lighter footed, danced with it like a partner in some fantastic minuet, returning to my side and my argument only when the creamy gliding meander ebbed.
“A man’s power to impart his best self,” I said, “depends on the woman’s power to receive it.”
“Of course,” said Cornelia, “all that any man, even a genius, asks of his wife is intelligence enough to appreciate him.”
“No,” I said, “that isn’t true. That is going by. There was a time when a husband thought of himself as the pianist, and of his wife as standing behind him to turn the pages of his music. But nowadays we begin to think that the ideal concert is by two performers on perfectly synchronized independent instruments—not soloist and accompanist but, say, organist and pianist, each as important as the other.”
“Nonsense!” said Cornelia, “We shall never expect that. But we do like our accompaniment to be applauded when we play well—and especially when we don’t.”
“If there is one subject in the world,” I said, veering a point, “about which I am more densely ignorant than another, it is women, and what they really like.”
“That’s quite true,” she lilted.