n the midsummer of their engagement, to have their photographs taken
together in affectionate attitudes.

The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of
romantic love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile. The
inanely amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The endlessly
osculatory, with their protracted salutations, are sickening. Even when
an air of sentimental propriety is thrown about them by some such title
as "Wedded" or "The Honeymoon," they fatigue us. For the most part, they
remind me of the remark which the Commodore made upon a certain painting
of Jupiter and lo which hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.

"Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the voluptuary."

Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and
reservations on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now confess
that the whole of my doubts do not weigh much against my unreasoned
faith in romantic love. At heart I am no infidel, but a most obstinate
believer and devotee. My seasons of skepticism are transient. They
are connected with a torpid liver and aggravated by confinement to a
sedentary life and enforced abstinence from angling. Out-of-doors, I
return to a saner and happier frame of mind.

As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of the
sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda Jane has
not been omitted from the view. This vast and populous city, with all
its passing show of life, would be little better than a waste, howling
wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and then, of young
people falling in love in the good old-fashioned way. Even on a
trout-stream, I have seen nothing prettier than the sight upon which I
once came suddenly as I was fishing down the Neversink.

A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a drink
of water out of her rosy hands. They stared with wonder and compassion
at the wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream, as if he were
some kind of a mild lunatic. But as I glanced discreetly at their
small tableau, I was not unconscious of the new joy that came into the
landscape with the presence of

"A lover and his lass."

I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup. I also have
lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.

A FATAL SUCCESS

"