I knew
what freezing image lay on the white breasts beneath the laces!
A very simple INTELLECTUAL mechanism answers the necessities of
friendship, and even of the most intimate relations of life. If a
watch tells us the hour and the minute, we can be content to carry
it about with us for a life-time, though it has no second-hand and
is not a repeater, nor a musical watch,--though it is not enamelled
nor jewelled,--in short, though it has little beyond the wheels
required for a trustworthy instrument, added to a good face and a
pair of useful hands. The more wheels there are in a watch or a
brain, the more trouble they are to take care of. The movements of
exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic by their very
nature. A calm, clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises
which are so often met with in creative or intensely perceptive
natures, is the best basis for love or friendship.--Observe, I am
talking about MINDS. I won't say, the more intellect, the less
capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding
and reason;--but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away
with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of
wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart
happy, I have no question.
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