"There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester . . . that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him--servants will, you know, ma'am--and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, almost like a child. . . Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched."

"The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage--quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. . . He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit in the Hall."

 -- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

There, you see, I am not all so odd after all. Just born out of my time.

Perhaps it is that men don't really know how to love properly until they're full-grown, around forty or so. I'll tell you one thing I've often thought: I believe that one of the reasons is that a younger man would not have the ability to appreciate a truly beautiful woman as fully, as she deserves. One with beauty and charm so complex; so rich and multi-layered, that it would be wasted on a boy. Like giving a child a cabernet to drink: he prefers kool-aid.