June 6 + 

A violent argument with R⁠⸺ re marriage. He says Love means appropriation, and is taking the most elaborate precautions to forfend passion⁠—just as if it were a militant suffragette. Every woman he meets he first puts into a long quarantine, lest perchance she carries the germ of the infectious disease. He quotes Hippolytus and talks like a medieval ascetic. Himself, I imagine, he regards as a valuable but brittle piece of Dresden china which must be saved from rough handling and left unmolested to pursue its high and dusty destiny⁠—an old crock as I warned him. By refusing to plunge into life he will live long and be a well preserved man, but scarcely a living man⁠—a mummy rather. I told him so amid much laughter. + 

“You’re a reactionary,” says he. + 

“Yes, but why should a reactionary be a naughty boy?” + 