Book IV 324-40
This passage is Romney's attempt to explain himself to Aurora when Aurora asked why he was going to marry. I believe he was also defending his heart by slighting Aurora, the one who broke his heart. Romney and Aurora shares a "mutual love" while he is marrying Marian for "common love". In this passage we see a very cynical view of love, that mutual love no longer exists and no longer has substance, and is as old as the beginning of life. To Romney it is a paradise tainted by his reality. He claims to marry for the institution, to go with a wife to galleries and dates with other couples. Love is no longer the reason to marriage (he refers to it as "work"), but rather marriage is essential to live "honorable". He defies what Aurora stands for, for it is love that she expresses through poetry and cannot understand his reasoning for marrying someone just to obtain the institution's title. He has always thought she had not the ability to write poetry because she was a woman, but now he accepts her position--bashing her now for being a poet than a woman trying to be one. He feels that poetry is useless because love no longer holds its former position, that she has gnats instead of moths. To Romney love is dead, and therefore poetry has nothing to exist on, nothing to feed on, and nothing remain on.
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