. . .
"It is no excuse for me that I thought she was like-minded with
myself. I had no sound reason for supposing that. I did suppose
that. I did not perceive that not only was she younger than myself,
but that while I had been going through a mill of steely education,
kept close, severely exercised, polished by discussion, she had but
the weak training of a not very good school, some scrappy reading,
the vague discussions of village artists, and the draped and
decorated novelties of the 'advanced.' It all went to nothing on
the impact of the world. . . . She showed herself the woman the
world has always known, no miracle, and the alternative was for me
to give myself to her in the ancient way, to serve her happiness, to
control her and delight and companion her, or to let her go.
"The normal woman centres upon herself; her mission is her own charm
and her own beauty and her own setting; her place is her home. She
demands the concentration of a man. Not to be able to command that
is her failure. Not to give her that is to shame her.
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