Of course, now, I am not
talking of the sleepless nights or the anxious days you spent before
you knew whether she loved you. No, indeed; you did enough thinking
and worrying then to please anybody. But I am referring to the girl to
whom you are engaged, perhaps you are married to her, and have been
for forty years. You are not too old yet to know that you have not
been a perfect lover. I know that old story, that men are so fond of
telling just here, about a man running for a car before he has caught
it. Yes, we know all that. But we want you to keep on running.
However, on the other hand, I know that ideal love is a difficult
thing to manage, from our point of view. It is a fearful strain to
live up to it. In fact, nobody can do it. But I never could see why
you had to stick to one or the other. Why can't you mix the two?
Ideal love is a beautiful thing to think about or to live in for a few
weeks or months--according to your temperament. It cannot be equalled
for the first part of an engagement or the honeymoon. But it is like
going to the theatre and seeing the grandeur of the old gray castle,
and the perpetual moonlight, and the devoted love of the satin duchess
for the velvet duke. You know that it is just acting, and that the
villain is not really going to swim the moat with his band of steel
warriors, and burn the castle, and capture the duchess and marry her
by force.
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