cy--all desire is a promise. We
double our joys by sharing them, and the life for the Other Self seems a
psychological need. Man is only in process of creation. We have not
traveled far; we are only just learning to walk, and so we sometimes
stumble and fall. But mankind is moving toward the light, and such is
our faith now in the Divine Intelligence that we do not believe that in
our hearts were planted aspirations and desires that are to work our
undoing. The same God who created paradise devised the snake, and if the
snake had something to do with driving the man and woman out of the
Garden into a world of work, it was well. Difficulty, trial, hardship,
obstacle, are all necessary factors in the evolution of souls.

A man alone is only half a man--he pines for his mate. When he reaches a
certain degree of mentality he craves partnership. He wants to tell it
to Her! When she reads she wants to read to Him. And when a man and a
woman reach an altitude where they spiritualize their love, they are in
no danger of wearing it out.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI AND ELIZABETH ELEANOR SIDDAL

LOVE'S LOVERS

Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone,
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle, scornful hours he flings away;
And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed the wings which brought him yesterday
And thank his wings today that he is flown.

My lady only loves the heart of Love:
Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree.
There kneels he now, and all a-hungered of
Thine eyes gray-lit in shadowing hair above,
Seals with thy mouth his immortality.

--_Dante Gabriel Rossetti_

[Illustration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI]

When an ambitious young man from the "provinces" signified his intention
to Colonel Ingersoll of coming to Peoria and earning an honest
livelihood, he was encouraged by the Bishop of Agnosticism with the
assurance that he would find no competition.

Personally, speaking for my single self, I should say that no man is in
so dangerous a position as he who has no competition in well-doing.
Competition is not only the life of trade, but of everything else. There
have been times when I have thought that I had no competition in
truth-telling, and then to pr