DR. FAUSTUS - Chapter XX

"The women were not quite so lucky with him as he was with them, so far as I saw; at least not individually, for collectively they enjoyed his entire devotion. It was a roving, all-embracing devotion, it referred to the sex as such, and the possibilities for happiness presented to him by the entire world; for the single instance found him inactive, frugal, reserved. That he could have as many love-affairs as he chose seemed to satisfy him, it was as though he shrank from every connection with the actual because he saw therein a theft from the possible. The potential was his kingdom, its endless spaces his domain - therein and thus far he was really a poet. He had concluded from his name that his forebears had been giant attendants on knights and princes,..."