Not words, not music or rhyme I want --

The Lord knew he would marry her if he could! Marriage would be an incident, not an end with her; he was sure of that. If it were not he, it would be some one else; some one who would be a weight about her neck, probably; who would hold her back and beat her down and divert her from the first plunge for which he felt she was gathering all her energies. He meant to help her, and he could not think of another man who would. He went over his unmarried friends, East and West, and could not think of one who would know what she was driving at -- or care. The clever ones were selfish, and the kindly ones were stupid.

"Damn it, if she's going to fall in love with somebody, it had better be me than any of the others -- of the sort she'd find. Get her tied up with some conceited ass who'd try to make her over, train her like a puppy! Give one of 'em a big nature like that, and he'd be horrified. He wouldn't show his face in the clubs until he'd gone after her and combed her down to conform to some fool idea in his own head -- put there by some other woman, too, his first sweetheart or his grandmother or a maiden aunt. At least, I understand her. I know what she needs, and where she's bound, and I mean to see that she has a fighting chance."

- from The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather



This made me think of him, for reasons that ought to be obvious.