been fortified for this tremendous conflict of opening manhood, which is
to our life here what is the landing of a soul to the life to come?

Meantime, it is a bad business when the double-man goes about kneeling at
the feet of more than one lady. Society (to give that institution its
due) permits him to seek partial invulnerability by dipping himself in a
dirty Styx, which corrects, as we hear said, the adolescent tendency to
folly. Wilfrid's sentiment had served him (well or ill as it may be), by
keeping him from a headlong plunge in the protecting river; and his folly
was unchastened. He did not even contemplate an escape from the net at
Emilia's expense. The idea came. The idea will come to a young man in
such a difficulty. "My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My dark
angel of love!" He deserves a little credit for seeing that Emilia never
could be his mistress, in the debased sense of the term. Union with her
meant life-long union, he knew. Ultimate mental subjection he may also
have seen in it, unconsciously. For, hazy thoughts of that nature may
mix with the belief that an alliance with her degrades us, in this
curious hotch-potch of emotions known to the world as youthful man. A
wife superior to her husband makes him ridiculous wilfully, if the wretch
is to be laughed at; but a mistress thus ill-matched cannot fail to cast
the absurdest light on her monstrous dwarf-custodian. Wilfrid had the
sagacity to perceive, and the keen apprehension of ridicule to shrink
from, the picture. Besides, he was beginning to love Emilia. His
struggle now was to pluck his passion from his heart; and such was
already his plight that he saw no other way of attempting it than by
taking horse and riding furiously in the direction of Besworth.