t the aristocratic scheme. I thought
for a time I would call this ill-defined and miscellaneous wilderness of
limitation the Personal Life. But at last I have decided to divide this
vast territory of difficulties into two subdivisions and make one of
these Indulgence, meaning thereby pleasurable indulgence of sense or
feeling, and the other a great mass of self-regarding motives that
will go with a little stretching under the heading of Jealousy. I
admit motives are continually playing across the boundary of these
two divisions, I should find it difficult to argue a case for my
classification, but in practice these two groupings have a quite
definite meaning for me. There is pride in the latter group of impulses
and not in the former; the former are always a little apologetic. Fear,
Indulgence, Jealousy, these are the First Three Limitations of the soul
of man. And the greatest of these is Jealousy, because it can use pride.
Over them the Life Aristocratic, as I conceive it, marches to its end.
It saves itself for the truth rather than sacrifices itself romantically
for a friend. It justifies vivisection if thereby knowledge is won for
ever. It upholds that Brutus who killed his sons. It forbids devotion to
women, courts of love and all such decay of the chivalrous idea. And it
resigns--so many things that no common Man of Spirit will resign. Its
intention transcends these things. Over all the world it would maintain
justice, order, a noble peace, and it would do this without indignation,
without resentment, without mawkish tenderness or individualized
enthusiasm or any queen of beauty. It is of a cold austere quality,
commanding sometimes admiration but having small hold upon the
affections of men. So that it is among its foremost distinctions that
its heart is steeled...."

There this odd fragment ended and White was left to resume the
interrupted autobiography.

2

What moods, what passions, what nights of despair and gathering storms
of anger, what sudden cruelties and amazing tendernesses are buried
and hidden and implied in every love story! What a waste is there of
exquisite things! So each spring sees a million glorious beginnings, a
sunlit heaven in every opening leaf, warm perfection in every stirring
egg, hope and fear and beauty beyond computation in every forest tree;
and in the autumn before the snows come they have all gone, of all
that incalculable abundance of life, of all that hope and adventu