heir love
disappointments in rage against their successors. In the strictest,
truest sense, indeed, although it is certainly a hard saying, there is no
room in a clear mind for such a feeling of jealousy. For the way in which
every two hearts approach each other is necessarily a peculiar
combination of individualities, never before and never after exactly
duplicated in human experience. So that, if we can conceive of a woman
truly loving several lovers, whether successively or simultaneously, they
would not be rivals, for the manner of her love for each, and the manner
of each one's love for her, is peculiar and single, even as if they two
were alone in the world. The higher the mental grade of the persons
concerned, the wider their sympathies, and the more delicate their
perceptions, the more true is this.

Henry had been recently offered a very good position in an arms
manufactory in Boston, and, having made up his mind to leave the village,
he wrote to accept it, and promptly followed his letter, having first
pledged his sole Newville correspondent, Laura, to make no references to
Madeline in her letters.

"If they should be married," he was particular to say, "don't tell me
about it till some time afterward."

Perhaps he worked the better in his new place because he was unhappy.
The foe of good work is too easy self-complacency, too ready
self-satisfaction, and the tendency to a pleased and relaxed
contemplation of life and one's surroundings, growing out of a
well-to-do state. Such a smarting sense of defeat, of endless aching
loss as filled his mind at this time, was a most exacting background for
his daily achievements in business and money-making to show up against.
He had lost that power of enjoying rest which is at once the reward and
limitation of human endeavour. Work was his nepenthe, and the difference
between poor, superficial work and the best, most absorbing, was simply
that between a weaker and a stronger opiate. He prospered in his affairs,
was promoted to a position of responsibility with a good salary, and,
moreover, was able to dispose of a patent in gun-barrels at a handsome
price.

With the hope of distracting his mind from morbid brooding over what was
past helping, he went into society, and endeavoured to interest himself
in young ladies. But in these efforts his success was indifferent.
Whenever he began to flatter himself that he was gaining a philosophical
calm, the glimpse of some face