s make answer to my plea;
A crimson mantle o'er thy cheek is thrown
Assurance more than this, there need not be,
For thus, within the silence, love is known.
Good-night, Sweetheart.

The Ideal Woman

The trend of modern thought in art and literature is toward the real,
but fortunately the cherishing of the ideal has not vanished.

All of us, though we may profess to be realists, are at heart
idealists, for every woman in the innermost sanctuary of her thoughts
cherishes an ideal man. And every man, practical and commonplace
though he be, has before him in his quiet moments a living picture of
grace and beauty, which, consciously or not, is his ideal woman.

Every man instinctively admires a beautiful woman. But when he seeks a
wife, he demands other qualities besides that wonderful one which is,
as the proverb tells us, "only skin deep."

If men were not such strangely inconsistent beings, the world
would lose half its charm. Each sex rails at the other for its
inconsistency, when the real truth is that nowhere exists much of
that beautiful quality which is aptly termed a "jewel."

But humanity must learn with Emerson to seek other things than
consistency, and to look upon the lightning play of thought and
feeling as an index of mental and moral growth.

For those who possess the happy faculty of "making the best of
things," men are really the most amusing people in existence. To hear
a man dilate upon the virtues and accomplishments of the ideal woman
he would make his wife is a most interesting diversion, besides being
a source of what may be called decorative instruction.

She must, first of all, be beautiful. No man, even in his wildest
moments, ever dreamed of marrying any but a beautiful woman, yet, in
nine cases out of ten when he does go to the altar, he is leading
there one who is lovely only in his own eyes.

He has read Swinburne and Tennyson and is very sure he won't have
anything but "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely
fair." Then, of course, there is the "classic profile," the "deep,
unfathomable eyes," the "lily-white skin," and "hair like the raven's
wing," not to mention the "swan-like neck" and "tapering, shapely
fingers."

Mr. Ideal is really a man of refined taste, and the women who hear
this impassioned outburst are supremely conscious of their own
imperfections.

But beauty is not the only demand of this fastidious gentl