I’ve found the perfect man

And he lives in a book, of course. Damn my life!

The beastly Huns! They stood between him and Valentine Wannop. If they would go home he could be sitting talking to her for whole afternoons. That was what a young woman was for. You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can’t otherwise talk. You can’t finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn’t be in the mood when she is in the mood – for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together – for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained . . . and exhausted. So that . . .
That in effect was love.

(From the Parade’s End series by Ford Madox Ford. I’ve never been so in love with a book. Except when I’m reading Edith Wharton.)

I need Christopher Tietjens to be real, so I can marry him. And this isn’t helping AT ALL!