“Love is the worst thing that can happen to people in novels,” Tom protested. “What good did Heathcliff and all his passionate foaming at the mouth do for Cathy? Look at Sydney Carton—if he’d loved Lucie just a little less, he would have waited until her husband was guillotined, married her himself, and carried on with his successful law practice. But no, he did the noble thing, because love made him stupid. And then there’s Jane Eyre, an otherwise sensible woman so dazzled by lovemaking, she didn’t happen to notice the scurrying of an arsonous madwoman overhead. There would be far more happy
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