catastrophe—men don’t.

may

Even more than Stephen longed to succeed, he longed to be loved. And in a hurt, dumb boy-way he realized that he did not, as a rule, attract love.

“Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; ’tis woman’s whole existence.” Hum? There are men and men. (There are even women and women.) Stephen longed to be very rich, and planned to do it. He longed to contrive strange, wonderful things that would cleave the air as birds clove it, revolutionize both Commerce and her servant and master Transport, make travel a dance and a melody, redraw the map of the world, carry armies across the hemispheres with a breath, hurl kings from their thrones, annihilate peoples in an hour—and he planned to do it: planned as he lay on the grass and watched the birds, planned as he sat in the firelight, planned as he lay in bed. But more than all this he longed to be loved: longed but could not plan it. The child knew his own limitations; and that he did was at once his ability and inability: it was equipment and drag-chain.

and

He ached for love. He longed to feel his uncle’s hand in caress on his shoulder. Once in the twilight he cuddled Helen’s doll to him, in fierce longing and loneliness of heart. And night after night he prayed that in his dreams he might hear his mother’s voice. And sometimes he did. Science asserts that we never hear in our sleep. Science still has some things to learn.

hear

Stephen loved Hugh, and this affection was returned. But Stephen wanted more than that; Hugh loved every one. Their mutual fondness was placid and moderate. And it lacked novelty.

If Hugh loved every one, every one loved Hugh—unless Helen did not. And Helen was merely a baby, and cared for no one but her father—unless it was “Gertrude,” whom Stephen hated.

Even Richard Bransby himself, hard and impassive, began to warm to the younger boy, and Stephen sensed it. He was keen to such things, and read his uncle the more readily because they resembled each other in so much.

But, much as he desired to be loved, Stephen was not jealous of Hugh. Jealousy had as yet no hand in his hopes, his fears or his plans: Jealousy, sometimes Love’s horrid bastard-twin, sometimes Love’s flaming-sworded angel.

Possibly Stephen’s as-yet escape from jealousy 

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