" {11} Beautiful words indeed! how
came the author of a tribute so caressingly appreciative, so
eloquently sincere, to remain himself outside the gates of
Paradise? how could the pen which in the Crimean chapter on the
Holy Shrines traced so exquisitely the delicate fancifulness of
purest sexual love, perpetrate that elaborate sneer over the
bachelor obsequies of Carrigaholt--"the lowly grave, that is the
end of man's romantic hopes, has closed over all his rich fancies
and all his high aspirations: he is utterly married." {12}
"Gai, gai, mariez vous,
Mettez vous dans la misere!
Gai, gai, mariez vous,
Mettez vous la corde au cou!" {13}
There is generally a good reason for prolonged celibacy, a reason
which the bachelor as generally does not betray: Kinglake remained
single, by his own account, because he had observed that women
always prefer other men to their own husbands. Yet, although
unmarried, perhaps because unmarried, he heartily admired many
clever women; formed with them sedate but genuine friendships, the
l'amour sans ailes, sometimes called "Platonic" by persons who have
not read Plato; found in their illogical clear-sightedness, in
their [Greek word which cannot be reproduced], to use the master's
own untranslatable phrase, a titillating stimulus which he missed
in men.
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