These were the hours which revealed to Thyrsis the treasure he had won--the creature of pure beauty whose heart was in his keeping. He was humbled and afraid before her; but the agony of it was that he could not dwell in those regions of joy with her--he had to know about stupid things and vulgar people, he had to go out among them to scramble for a living. So there had to be a side to his mind that Corydon could not share. And it did not suffice just to tolerate the existence of such things--he had to be actively interested in them, and to take their point of view. How else could he hold his place in the world, how could he win in the struggle for life? This, he strove to persuade himself, was the one real difficulty between them, the one thing that marred the perfection of their bliss. But as time went on, he came to suspect that there was something else--something even more vital and important. It seemed to him that he had given up that which was the chief source of his power--his isolation. The center of his consciousness had been shifted outside of himself; and try as he would, he could never get it back. Where now were the hours and hours of silent brooding? Where were the long battles in his own soul? And what was to take he place of them--could conversation do it, conversation no matter how interesting and worth while? Thyrsis had often quoted a saying of Emerson’s, that “people descend to meet.” And when one was married did not one have to descend all the time? He reasoned the matter out to himself. It was not Corydon’s fault, he saw clearly; it would have been the same had he married one of the seraphim. He did not want to live the life of any seraph--he wanted to live his own life. And was it not obvious that the mere physical proximity of another person kept one’s attention upon external things? Was not one inevitably kept aware of trivialities and accidents? Thyrsis had an ideal, that he should never permit an idle word to pass his lips; and now he saw how inevitably the common-place crept in upon them--how, for instance, their conversation had a way of turning to personality and jesting. Corydon was sensitive to external things, and she kept him aware of the fact that his trousers were frayed and his hair unkempt, and that other people were remarking these things.