and jealous sort of love that is so hard to
deal with, a love that exults in solitariness of devotion, and cannot
bear any intrusion of other relations.

Yet if one believes, as I for one believe, that the secret of the world
is somehow hidden in love, and can be interpreted through love alone,
then one must run the risks of love, and seek for strength to bear the
inevitable suffering which love must bring.

But men and women are very differently made in this respect. Among
innumerable minor differences, certain broad divisions are clear. Men,
in the first place, both by training and temperament, are far less
dependent upon affection than women. Career and occupation play a much
larger part in their thoughts. If one could test and intercept the
secret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind moves idly among
the objects which most concern it, it would be found, I do not doubt,
that men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and
tangible things--their work, their duties, their ambitions, their
amusements--and centre little upon the thought of other people; an
affection, an emotional relation, is much more of an incident than a
settled preoccupation; and then with men there are two marked types,
those who give and lavish affection freely, who are interested and
attracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends; and
there are others who respond to advances, yet do not go in search of
friendship, but only accept it when it comes; and the singular thing is
that such natures, which are often cold and self-absorbed, have a power
of kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling
sometimes lack. It is strange that it should be so, but there is some
psychological law at the back of it; and it is certainly true in my
experience that the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship
have not as a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I
suppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of
self-contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are
critical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who
would claim their affection.

Women, I have no doubt, live far more in the thought of others, and
desire their intention; they wish to arrive at mutual understanding and
confidence, to explore personality, to pierce behind the surface, to
establish a definite relation. Yet in the matter of relations with
others, women are of