It is, I suppose, one of life’s cruelties – and the fate of many passionate souls – that one can plunge oneself wholeheartedly into some aspect of the world and end up feeling increasingly excluded. Internet living disrupts that pattern, placing us at the centre of whatever little world we choose, and it serves to show us at what cost we medicate the conditions of our existence. And George Eliot’s Casaubon demonstrated that the avoidance of passion is no recipe for happiness either.
