Queer how you fellows always
slide up to the very ears into the particular things that you've long ago
rejected theoretically--like yourself into marriage. As long as I've
known you, you've struggled with this unhappy mania for marriage.
LOTH
It's instinct with me, sheer instinct. God knows, I can wriggle all I
please--there it is.
DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG
When all's said and done one can fight down even an instinct.
LOTH
Certainly, if there's a good reason, why not?
DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG
Is there any good reason for marrying?
LOTH
I should say there is. It has a purpose; it has for me! You don't know
how I've succeeded in struggling along hitherto. I don't want to grow
sentimental. Perhaps I didn't feel it quite so keenly either; perhaps I
wasn't so clearly conscious of it as I am now, that in all my endeavour I
had taken on something desolate, something machine-like. No spirit, no
fire, no life! Heaven knows whether I had any faith left! And all that
has come back to me to-day--with such strange fullness, such primal
energy, such joy ... Pshaw, what's the use ... You don't understand.
DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG
The various things you fellows need to keep you going--faith, love, hope.
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