They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast Of some great ammiral were but a wand, He walk'd with to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle.
It is a mark of wisdom not to kick away the very step from which we have risen higher. The removal of one step from a staircase brings down the whole of it.