e, which produces lassitude, also
dissipates illusion, undermines our passions, withers our loves, and
changes our hearts even as it changes our locks and our years. There
is but one exception to this human infirmity. There sometimes occurs
in a strong soul a love firm enough to transform itself into
impassioned friendship, so as to become a duty, and appropriate the
qualities of virtue. Then, neutralizing the weakness of nature, it
acquires the immortality of a principle."

Before leaving this part of the theme, it may not be out of place to
express the belief, a belief founded on no hurried inference from a
narrow survey of history, or from a superficial study of the data in
the breast, that the greatest number of examples of the most
impassioned, absorbing, and lasting affection between the sexes have
occurred within the ties of marriage, and not outside of those ties.
More than other kindred relations, these rest on the nourishing basis
of public law and social honor, as well as of personal esteem and
avowed identification of interests. Whatever necessitates secrecy, or
compromises the fullness and frankness of self respect, even if it
give piquancy and fire, takes away moral health, steady integrity;
and inserts an insidious element, either of devouring fever or of
slow decay. Other things being equal, affection, wedded under every
legal and moral sanction, reaches the highest climax and is the most
complete and enduring. Every failure implies some defect in the
conditions. The readiness, in general, of illicit love to admit a
substitute, its facility of consolation and forgetfullness when any
fatal calamity has removed its object, demonstrates both its lower
origin and its baser nature. In a well consorted marriage, the soul,
the mind, esteem and faith, the pure strain of friendship, enter more
largely. The grave is not the boundary of its functions. After death,
the love is cherished in the ideal fife of the mind as vividly as
ever, and with an added sanctity. Widowed memory clings to the
disconsolate happiness of sitting by the fountain of oblivion, and
drawing up the sunken treasure. If, as Statius said, to love the
living be a pleasant indulgence, to love the dead is a religious
duty:

Vivam amare, voluptas; defunctam, religio.

A multitude of nameless husbands and wives have experienced this
truth in their bereavement; their love not decaying, but passing into
resurrection. The Hindus have a fine parable