ch, in a little while, raises her to an
equality with him who shares her life. Her greatest quality must be tact,
that subtle sense which is to the mind what touch is to the body. It
reveals to her a thousand little things, contours, angles and forms on
the plane of the intellectual.

Very frequently pretty women have not intellect to correspond with their
personal charms. Now, the slightest lack of harmony strikes me and pains
me at the first glance. In friendship this is not of importance.
Friendship is a compact in which one fairly shares defects and merits. We
may judge of friends, whether man or woman, giving them credit for what
is good, and overlooking what is bad in them, appreciating them at their
just value, while giving ourselves up to an intimate, intense and
charming sympathy.

In order to love, one must be blind, surrender one's self absolutely, see
nothing, question nothing, understand nothing. One must adore the
weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all
judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity.

I am incapable of such blindness and rebel at unreasoning subjugation.
This is not all. I have such a high and subtle idea of harmony that
nothing can ever fulfill my ideal. But you will call me a madman. Listen
to me. A woman, in my opinion, may have an exquisite soul and charming
body without that body and that soul being in perfect harmony with one
another. I mean that persons who have noses made in a certain shape
should not be expected to think in a certain fashion. The fat have no
right to make use of the same words and phrases as the thin. You, who
have blue eyes, madame, cannot look at life and judge of things and
events as if you had black eyes. The shade of your eyes should
correspond, by a sort of fatality, with the shade of your thought. In
perceiving these things, I have the scent of a bloodhound. Laugh if you
like, but it is so.

And yet, once I imagined that I was in love for an hour, for a day. I had
foolishly yielded to the influence of surrounding circumstances. I
allowed myself to be beguiled by a mirage of Dawn. Would you like me to
tell you this short story?

I met, one evening, a pretty, enthusiastic little woman who took a poetic
fancy to spend a night with me in a boat on a river. I would have
preferred a room and a bed; however, I consented to the river and the
boat.

It was in the month of June. My fair companion chose a moonlight night in
order the bet