th a sole view to the
physical and intellectual improvement of the race. There should be a
permanent government commission appointed, say one in each State
consisting of the most prominent scientists and moral teachers. No
marriage should be legal without being approved and confirmed by them.
Marriage, as it is at present, is, in nine cases out of ten, an
unqualified evil; as Schopenhauer puts it, it halves our joys and
doubles our sorrows--"

"And triples our expenses," I prompted, laughing.

"And triples our expenses," he repeated gravely. "Talk about finding
your affinity and all that sort of stuff! Supposing the world to be a
huge bag, as in reality it is; then take several hundred million
blocks, representing human beings, and label each one by pairs, giving
them a corresponding mark and color. Then shake the whole bag
violently, and you will admit that the chances of an encounter between
the two with the same label are extremely slim. It is just so with
marriage. It is all chance--a heartless, aimless, and cruel lottery.
There are more valuable human lives wrecked every hour of the day in
this dangerous game than by all the vices that barbarism or
civilization has ever invented."

I hazarded some feeble remonstrance against these revolutionary
heresies (as I conceived them to be), but my opponent met me on all
sides with his inflexible logic. We spent several hours together
without at all approaching an agreement, and finally parted with the
promise to dine together and resume the discussion the next day.

This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the pessimist, Edmund
Storm.

II.

"Freundschaft, Liebe, Stein der Weisen,
Diese Dreie hoert' ich preisen,
Und ich pries und suchte sie,
Aber ach! ich fand sie nie."--HEINE.

During the next two years there was never a week, and seldom a day,
when I did not see Storm. We lunched together at a much-frequented
restaurant not far from Wall street, and my friend's sarcastic
epigrams would do much to reconcile me to my temperance habits by
supplying in a more ethereal form the stimulants with which others
strove to facilitate or to ruin their digestions.

"Existence is even at best a doubtful boon," he would say while he
dissected his beefsteak with the seriousness of a scientific observer.
"A man's philosophy is regulated by his stomach. No amount of stoicism
can reconcile a man to dyspepsia. If our nationality were not by
nature endow