Theirs was that
substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all)
when the two who are thrown together begin first by
knowing the rougher sides of each other's character,
and not the best till further on, the romance growing
up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality.
This good-fellowship -- CAMARADERIE -- usually occurring
through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom
superadded to love between the sexes, because men and
women associate, not in their labours, but in their
pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance
permits its development, the compounded feeling proves
itself to be the only love which is strong as death -- that
love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods
drown, beside which the passion usually called by the
name is evanescent as steam.
CHAPTER LVII
A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING -- CONCLUSION
"THE most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is
possible to have."
Those had been Bathsheba's words to Oak one
evening, some time after the event of the preceding
chapter, and he meditated a full hour by the clock upon
how to carry out her wishes to the letter.
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