These were women one had to love "up," very high up, instead of down.
They were not pets. They were not servants. They were not timid,
inexperienced, weak.
After I got over the jar to my pride (which Jeff, I truly think,
never felt--he was a born worshipper, and which Terry never got
over--he was quite clear in his ideas of "the position of women"),
I found that loving "up" was a very good sensation after all.
It gave me a queer feeling, way down deep, as of the
stirring of some ancient dim prehistoric consciousness, a feeling
that they were right somehow--that this was the way to feel. It
was like--coming home to mother. I don't mean the underflannels-
and-doughnuts mother, the fussy person that waits on you and
spoils you and doesn't really know you. I mean the feeling
that a very little child would have, who had been lost--for ever
so long. It was a sense of getting home; of being clean and rested;
of safety and yet freedom; of love that was always there, warm
like sunshine in May, not hot like a stove or a featherbed--a love
that didn't irritate and didn't smother.
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