question with some subtlety. "Swift," says Dr. Garnett, "was by
nature devoid of passion. He was fully capable of friendship, but
not of love. The spiritual realm, whether of divine or earthly
things, was a region closed to him, where he never set foot." On
the side of friendship he must greatly have preferred Stella to
Vanessa, and yet the latter assailed him on his weakest side--on
the side of his love of imperious domination.

Vanessa hugged the fetters to which Stella merely submitted.
Flattered to excess by her surrender, yet conscious of his
obligations and his real preference, he could neither discard the
one beauty nor desert the other.

Therefore, he temporized with both of them, and when the choice
was forced upon him he madly struck down the woman for whom he
cared the less.

One may accept Dr. Garnett's theory with a somewhat altered
conclusion. It is not true, as a matter of recorded fact, that
Swift was incapable of passion, for when a boy at college he was
sought out by various young women, and he sought them out in turn.
His fiery letter to Miss Waring points to the same conclusion.
When Esther Johnson began to love him he was heart-free, yet
unable, because of his straitened means, to marry. But Esther
Johnson always appealed more to his reason, his friendship, and
his comfort, than to his love, using the word in its material,
physical sense. This love was stirred in him by Vanessa. Yet when
he met Vanessa he had already gone too far with Esther Johnson to
break the bond which had so long united them, nor could he think
of a life without her, for she was to him his other self.