“If this is the last time we are to meet in this life, let us see clearly to whom we offer this sacrifice.  If our love violated any higher law whatsoever, I would, as you say, bow myself in humility.  It were a forgetfulness of God to oppose one’s self to a higher will.  It may seem at times as if men could delude God, as if their small sense had gained some advantage over the Divine wisdom.  This is frenzy—­and the man who commences this Titanic battle; will be crushed and annihilated.  But what opposes our love?  Nothing but the talk of the world.  I respect the customs of human society.  I even respect them when, as in our time, they are over-refined and confused.  A sick body needs artificial medicines, and without the barriers, the respect and the prejudices of society, at which we smile, it were impossible to hold mankind together as at present existing, and to accomplish the purpose of our temporal co-existence.  We must sacrifice much to these divinities.  Like the Athenians, we send every year a heavy boatload of youths and maidens as tribute to this monster which rules the labyrinth of our society.  There is no longer a heart that has not broken; there is no longer a man of true feelings who has not been obliged to break the wings of his love before he came into the cage of society for rest.  It must be so.  It cannot be otherwise.  You know not life, but thinking only of my friends, I can tell you many volumes of tragedy.

“One loved a maiden, and the love was returned; but he was poor, she was rich.  The fathers and relatives wrangled and sneered, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  Because the world looked upon it as a misfortune for a woman to wear a dress made of the wool of a shrub in America, and not of the fibres of a worm in China.

“Another loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a Protestant, she was a Catholic.  The mothers and the priests bred mischief, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  On account of a political game of chess which Charles V and Henry VIII played together, three hundred years ago.

“A third loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a noble, she a peasant.  The sisters were angry, and quarreled, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  Because, a hundred years ago, one soldier slew another in battle, who threatened the life of his king.  This gave him title and honors, and his great grandson expiated the blood shed at that time, with a disappointed life.

“The statisticians say a heart is broken every hour, and I believe it.  But why?  In almost every case, because the world does not recognize love between ‘strange people,’ unless it be between man and wife.  If two maidens love the same man—­the one must fall as a sacrifice.  If two men love the same maiden, one or both must fall as a sacrifice.  Why?  Cannot one love a maiden, without wishing to marry her?  Cannot one look upon a woman, without desiring her for his