may turn to look back at the new faces of
the young men and women who will some day be inheriting our world as we
go out its gate. Will they laugh at us and think us pompous, as some of
us regard Mr. Patmore? He doesn't seem very hopeful, by the way, about
our caring for letters, but he does seem to think, if we do, that we
will not make fun of him.

I don't think he ought to mind that, though, if we are friendly about
it. We certainly respect him compared with many men of his time--the
shifty politicians, the vicious or weak leaders of thought, who went
through life as softies, without rigid standards of conduct. He shines
out by contrast, this incorruptible, solemn old Roman.

Only--he was so solemn! "From childhood to the grave" he thought he had
"a mission to perform," with his poems. And what was this mission that
he was so determined to fill? "He believed himself to be called upon to
celebrate Nuptial Love."

Again it is his solemnity one smiles at, but not his idea. Nuptial Love?
Very good. The possibilities of episodic love have been hotly explored,
its rights have been defended, its spiritual joys have been sung. But
Nuptial Love, our queer breed of humans, inconstant at heart, believes
to be a tame thing by contrast: nearly all anti-climax. There are
delights at the beginning, and a gentle glow (perhaps) at the end: for
the rest it is a long dusty journey of which the less said the better.
Exceptional couples who do somewhat better than this, and not only get
along without storms but live contentedly too, are apt to congratulate
themselves and call their lives a success. Contentedly! Pah! Content
with mere absence of friction! No conception, apparently, of the depths
beyond depths two should find, who devote themselves deeply to each
other for all of their lives. I don't say this often is possible: I
think people try: but one or the other comes up against a hard place and
stops. Only, sometimes it's not that which prevents going further; it's
a waywardness that will not stick to any one mine to get gold. A man
slips away and runs about, picking up stray outcroppings, but loses the
rich veins of metal, far down in the earth.

Why is it that so few of us contentedly stick to one mate, and say to
ourselves, "Here is my treasure; I will seek all in her."

Well, this is a subject on which I should enjoy speculating--but Nuptial
Love happens to be a field in which I have had no experience, and
furthermore it is