give my two hands, and give them cheerfully, if I
could believe in those things all over again. That puerile faith was a
false faith; and because I now know it to have been fictitious I smile
at it to-day, and never dream of wishing that I still believed in the
Man in the Moon. And, when, on the contrary, I catch a man saying with
wet eyes that he would give both his hands, and give them cheerfully,
if he could believe as his grandfather did, I see before me indubitable
evidence of the fact that, all unconsciously, grandsire and grandson
have both subscribed with fervour to the selfsame stately faith.

But, to save us from the sin of prosiness, let us indulge in a little
romance. Harry and Edith are lovers; but last evening, in the course
of a stroll by the side of the sea, a dark cloud swept over the golden
tranquillity of their enchantment. They parted at length--not as they
usually do. When poor ruffled little Edith reached her dainty room,
she flung herself in a tempest of tears upon the snowy counterpane, and
sobbed again and again and again, 'I would give anything if I could
love him as I loved him yesterday!' And all the while Harry, with
white and tearless face, and his soul in a tumult of agitation, is
lying back in his chair before the fire, his hands in his pockets,
saying to himself over and over again, 'I would give anything if I
could love her as I loved her yesterday!' Now here are a pair of
fascinating specimens for psychological analysis! Why is Edith so
anxious to love Harry as she loved him yesterday? Why is Harry so
eager to love Edith as he loved her yesterday? You do not passionately
desire to love a person whom you do not love. The secret is out!
Edith sobs to herself, 'I would give anything to love Harry as I loved
him yesterday!' because, being the silly little goose that she is, she
does not recognize that she does love Harry as she loved him yesterday.
And Harry, logical in everything but in love, does not see, as he sits
there muttering, that his very anxiety to love Edith just as he loved
her yesterday is the best proof that he could possibly have that his
love for Edith has undergone no change. Each is peering into a purse
that appears to be empty; each is crying for the gold that seems to
have gone; and each is ignorant of the fact that their wealth is still
with them, but is for a moment eluding their agitated scrutiny.

The philosophy that the new purse revealed to me is capa