find the cows.  But love never tarries.  Love is progressive; it can not stand still.  I have heard of the “passiveness” of woman’s love, but the passive woman is only one who does not love—­she merely consents to have affection lavished upon her.  When I hear of a passive woman, I always think of the befuddled sailor who once saw one of those dummy dress-frames, all duly clothed in flaming bombazine (I think it was bombazine) in front of a clothing establishment.  The sailor, mistaking the dummy for a near and dear lady friend, embraced the wire apparatus and imprinted a resounding smack on the chaste plaster-of-Paris cheek.  Meeting the sure-enough lady shortly after, he upbraided her for her cold passivity on the occasion named.

A passive woman—­one who consents to be loved—­should seek occupation among those worthy firms who warrant a fit in ready-made gowns, or money refunded.

Love is progressive—­it hastens onward like the brook hurrying to the sea.  They say that love is blind:  love may be short-sighted, or inclined to strabismus, or may see things out of their true proportion, magnifying pleasant little ways into seraphic virtues, but love is not really blind—­the bandage is never so tight but that it can peep.  The only kind of love that is really blind and deaf is Platonic love.  Platonic love hasn’t the slightest idea where it is going, and so there are surprises and shocks in store for it.  The other kind, with eyes wide open, is better.  I know a man who has tried both.  Love is progressive.  All things that live should progress.  To stand still is to retreat, and to retreat is death.  Love dies, of course.  All things die, or become something else.  And often they become something else by dying.  Behold the eternal Paradox!  The love that evolves into a higher form is the better kind.  Nature is intent on evolution, yet of the myriads of spores that cover earth, most of them are doomed to death; and of the countless rays sent out by the sun, the number that fall athwart this planet are infinitesimal.  Edward Carpenter calls attention to the fact that disappointed love—­that is, love that is “lost”—­often affects the individual for the highest good.  But the real fact is, nothing is ever lost.  Love in its essence is a spiritual emotion, and its office seems to be an interchange of thought and feeling; but often thwarted in its object, it becomes general, transforms itself into sympathy, and embracing a world, goes out to and blesses all mankind.

Very, very rare is the couple that has the sense and poise to allow passion just enough mulberry-leaves, so it will spin a beautiful silken thread, out of which a Jacob’s ladder can be constructed, reaching to the Infinite.  Most lovers in the end wear love to a fringe, and there remains no ladder with angels ascending and descending—­not even a dream of a ladder.  Instead of the silken ladder on which one can mount to Heaven, there is usually a dark, dank road to Nowhere, over which is thrown