Eves Diary | Page 9

my sleep, thinking of it,
but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness,
which is otherwise full to overflowing.
It is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is not that.
He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but
they are not so.
It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not that. He
told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex, I think,
and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on him, I
would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too, and I do
not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.
Then why is it that I love him? MERELY BECAUSE HE IS
MASCULINE, I think.
At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him
without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving
him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.
He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him
and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he
were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him;
and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and
watch by his bedside until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is
MASCULINE. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is
as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and
statistics. It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot explain
itself. And doesn't need to.
It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined this
matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I
have not got it right.

Forty Years Later
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life
together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall
have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;
and it shall be called by my name.
But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is
strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me --life
without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is
also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race
continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

At Eve's Grave
ADAM: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.

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