He had long since sworn off intimacy. As he rationalized in some diary notes set down at age twenty-two, “A woman loves life for the living of it far more than we do. Women of genius are rare. Thus when we . . . give all our thoughts to some work which estranges us from those nearest us, it is with women that we must struggle. The mother wants the love of her child above all things, even if she should make an imbecile of him. The mistress also wishes to possess her lover, and would find it quite natural to sacrifice the rarest genius in the world for an hour of love.”
