"Of what are you thinking now?" she asked. "I am thinking of myself." "That's just what I am doing." "Are you also thinking of yourself?" "No, of you… - Jens Peter Jacobsen

But, oh, how sweet it was to love for once with the love of real life; for now he knew that nothing of what he had imagined to be love was real love, neither the turgid longing of the lonely youth, nor the passionate yearning of the dreamer, nor yet the nervous foreboding of the child. These were currents in the ocean of love, single reflections of its full light, fragments of love as the meteors rushing through space are splinters of a world — for that was love; a world complete in itself, fully rounded, vast, and orderly. It was no medley of confused sensations and moods rushing one upon another! Love was like nature, ever changing, ever renewing; no feeling died and no emotion withered without giving life to the seed of something still more perfect which was embedded in it.

He had reached the point where he had to choose, for when first youth is past — early or late in accordance with each person's individuality — then, early or late, dawns the day when Resignation comes to us as a temptress, luring us to forego the impossible and be content. And Resignation has much in her favor; for how often have not the idealistic aspirations of youth been beaten back, its enthusiasms been shamed, its hopes laid waste! The ideals, the fair and beautiful, have lost nothing of their radiance, but they no longer walk here among us as in the early days of our youth.

People close their eyes to real life, they don't want to hear the 'no' it shouts at their wishes, they want to forget the deep chasm it shows them between their longing and what they long for. They want to realize their dreams. But life doesn't take dreams into account, there is not a single obstacle that can be dreamed away from reality, and so in the end they lie there wailing at the chasm, which has not changed but is the same as it has always been. But they themselves have changed for with their dreams they have goaded all their thoughts and inflamed their passions to the highest pitch. Yet the chasm has not grown narrower, and everything in them longs to cross over it. But no, always no, never anything else. And only if they had watched out for themselves in time, but now it is too late, they are unhappy (pp 31)