human
You who uphold all these social arrangements, how do you feel when you find yourself obliged to urge me to marry, not for the sake of the positive joys of domestic existence, but for the merely negative advantage of avoiding a hapless and forlorn state? You propose it as a _pis-aller_. Does _that_ argue that all is sound in the state of Denmark?
gpt
If you had not this unreasonable objection to what is really a woman's natural destiny, the difficulty would not exist.
human
Have women no pride?
gpt
Have they no sense of dignity? If one marries (accepting things on the usual basis, of course) one gives to another person rights and powers over one's life that are practically boundless. To retain one's self-direction in case of dispute would be possible only on pain of social ruin. I have little enough freedom now, heaven knows; but if I married, why my very thoughts would become the property of another. Thought, emotion, love itself, must pass under the yoke! There would be no nook or corner entirely and indisputably my own.
human
I should not regard that as a hardship, said Henriette,
gpt
I should consider it not only a hardship, but beyond endurance.
human
But, my dear, you are impracticable.
gpt
That is what I think domestic life is! Hadria's quiet tone was suddenly changed to one of scorn.
human
You talk of love; what has love worthy of the name to do with this preposterous interference with the freedom of another person? If _that_ is what love means--the craving to possess and restrain and demand and hamper and absorb, and generally make mincemeat of the beloved object, then preserve me from the master-passion.
gpt
I don't know how to make you see this in a truer light, she said.
human
There is something to my mind so beautiful in the close union of two human beings, who pledge themselves to love and honour one another, to face life hand in hand, to share every thought, every hope, to renounce each his own wishes for the sake of the other.
gpt
That sounds very elevating; in practice it breeds Mr. and Mrs. Gordon.
human
Do you mean to tell me you will never marry on this account?
gpt
I would never marry anyone who would exact the usual submissions and renunciations, or even desire them, which I suppose amounts almost to saying that I shall never marry at all. What man would endure a wife who demanded to retain her absolute freedom, as in the case of a close friendship? The man is not born!
human
You seem to forget, dear Hadria, in objecting to place yourself under the yoke, as you call it, that your husband would also be obliged to resign part of _his_ independence to you. The prospect of loss of liberty in marriage often prevents a man from marrying ( Wise man!
gpt
Good heavens! do you think that the opportunity to interfere with another person would console me for being interfered with myself? I don't want my share of the constraining power. I would as soon accept the lash of a slave-driver. This moral lash is almost more odious than the other, for its thongs are made of the affections and the domestic 'virtues,' than which there can be nothing sneakier or more detestable!
human
You are wrong, my dear Hadria, she said emphatically;
gpt
How? why?
human
One can't have everything in this life. You must be willing to resign part of your privileges for the sake of the far greater privileges that you acquire.
gpt
I can imagine nothing that would compensate for the loss of freedom, the right to oneself.
human
What about love?
gpt
Love! echoed Hadria scornfully.
human
Do you suppose I could ever love a man who had the paltry, ungenerous instinct to enchain me?
gpt
Why use such extreme terms? Love does not enchain.
human
Exactly what I contend,
gpt
But naturally husband and wife have claims.
human
Naturally. I have just been objecting to them in what you describe as extreme terms.
gpt
But I mean, when people care for one another, it is a joy to them to acknowledge ties and obligations of affection.
human
Ah! one knows what _that_ euphemism means!
gpt
Pray what does it mean?
human
That the one serious endeavour in the life of married people is to be able to call each other's souls their own.
gpt
My language may not be limpid.
human
Oh, I see what you mean. I was only wondering who can have taught you all these strange ideas.
gpt
My mother,
human
I go twirling things round and round in my head till I grow dizzy. But you compare ideas with fact; you even turn ideas into fact; while I can get no hold on fact at all. Thoughts rise as mists rise from the river, but nothing happens. I feel them begin to prey upon me, working inwards.
gpt
It is a mad world, she said.
human
Week after week goes by, and there seems no lifting of the awful darkness in which the lives of these millions are passed. We want workers by the thousand. Yet, as if in mockery, the Devil keeps these well-fed thousands eating their hearts out in idleness or artificial occupations till they become diseased merely for want of something to do. Then, added Algitha,
gpt
His Majesty marries them, and sets them to work to create another houseful of idle creatures, who have to be supported by the deathly toil of those who labour too much.
human
The devil is full of resources!