Such were the humbling effects of love. As they grew older, people distanced themselves from love not so much from a diminishing of passion, the desire to love, as from a dulling of the clear and anguished self-awareness of adolescence, the fear that they were not lovable. The value of work and hobbies was the easy comfort they provided to lonely people who suffered from not being loved because they were not beautiful or lively. But such people forgot to dream fervently of becoming beautiful or lively in order to be loved. What was love if it failed to inspire the desire to be worthy of the
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