Sometimes—­sometimes—­that glorious dream comes true, in which a hale and heart-whole youth implants the first pure passionate kiss upon the lips of a hale and heart-whole girl.—­Ah, happy twain!  For them the sun shines, the great earth spins, and constellations shed their selectest influence.  ’T is a dream that all youth dreams.  ’T is a dream makes wakeful life worth living.

Ah! the wild dream of youth!  The maenad dream!  The spring-time dream!

Of the maid:  the dim, dim dream of stalwart man offering a love supreme without alloy, and taking, forceful, a love as flawless, as supreme; a steady breast on which to lean, strong circling arms, a face set firm against the world, a face that softens only to her up-turned eyes that seek the lover who is hers and hers alone; a dream of music, color, and the swaying dance; of rivals splendidly out-shone; of home and friends and trappings; of raiment.  Retinue; of ordered bliss; and by and by, in a still dimmer far-off time, a time un-whispered to herself, of baby-fingers, baby lips . . . . . .

Of the youthful man:  a vivid dream, involved, unsteady, shifting; a dream of lust and love and smoke, and flame and fame; of cuirass and horse and saber; of blood and battle; of high place; of many dominated by his look and gesture; of mighty man, and orders issued, preemptory, not to be gain said; also of lithe arms, a supple waist, sweetly-soft entwining limbs, a gentle girlish woman all his own who never was another’s and always will be his; and an heir and household gods.—­Ah! the wild dream of youth!

Youths, dream ye while ye may!  And you, ye aged, I charge ye do not wake them:  it is the dream makes wakeful life worth living.  And yet—­and yet,

Sometimes—­sometimes, alack and fie for shame, things come to such a pass, between husband and wife, that a modus viviendi has to be tacitly agreed upon.  In that case, alas!

Too often, between husband and wife, it depends upon who is the better actor and liar—­to their shame be it said.  But before this happens, much else must have happened.  For,

Here and there, ahem! we meet a woman who is like the moon:  she circles sedately round, and dutifully faces, the planet to which she is united; but that planet does not know that she is irradiated and warmed by a far-distant sun—­a sun which symbolizes, ahem!  Duty, or Necessity, or Affection for her children, or (tell it not in Gath) Affection for another.

And here and there, ahem! we meet a man who, like the sun, shines steadfastly enough upon his own earth, but shines also, all unbeknown to earth, upon other earths—­and errant comets—­and small aerolites.

* * *

As it is usually physical or sentimental characteristics that bring a man and a woman into the field of mutual attraction, so it is generally physical or sentimental characteristics that drag them apart.  Thus,

A clever wife will put up with a stupid husband, and an intellectual man will get on admirably with a dull but domestic woman.  But