she is to me. Which is to bid me tell her what
she already knows, to tell her that she is the Mother Woman; that of all
women she is dearest to me; that of all the walks of life, that one is
pleasantest wherein I may walk with her; that with her I shall find the
supreme expression of myself and the life that is in me; that in all
this I honour her in the finest, loftiest fashion that man can honour
woman. Tell her this, Dane. By all means tell her.

"Ah, I do not mean that," I hear you say. Well, let me tell you what you
mean, in my own way, and bid you tell her for me. In the lust of my eyes
she is nothing to me. She is not a mere sense delight, a toy for the
debauchery of my intellect and the enthronement of emotion. She is not
the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the
woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down
doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to
put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to
befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready
to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of
possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise
and right conduct in the vortex of blind sex passion. She is not the
woman to arouse in me such uncontrolled desire that for gratification I
would do one ill deed, or put the slightest hurt upon the least of
human creatures. She is not the most beautiful woman God Almighty ever
planted on His footstool. (There have been and are many women as true
and pure and noble). She is not the woman for whose bedazzlement I must
advertise the value of my goods by sweating sonnets to her, or shivering
serenades at her, or perpetuating follies for her. In short, she is not
anything to me that the woman of conventional love is to the man.

And again, what _is_ she to me? She is my other self, as it were, my
good comrade, and fellow-worker and joy-sharer. With her woman she
complements my man and makes us one, and this is the highest civilised
sense of union. She is to me the culmination of the thousands of
generations of women. It took civilisation to make her, as it takes
civilisation to make our marriage. She is to me the partner in a
marriage of the gods, for we become gods, we half brutes, when we muzzle
the beast and are not menaced by his growls. Under heaven she is my wife
and the mother of my children.

Tell her, then, tell her