and stumbled in
the doing,--that is all. Temptation is sweet only because the impulse
comes from the depths of our being, not because it is difficult to be
tempted. If we overcome, the satisfaction is deep and enduring,--which
only goes to show that man is but a petty egotist, always drawing
pictures of himself on a pedestal. The man who emancipates himself
from traditions and yields to his impulses is debarred from happiness
by the blunders of the blindfolded generations preceding him, which
arranged that to yield was easy and to resist difficult. Had they
reversed the conditions and conclusions, the majority of the human
race would have fought each other to death, but the selected remnant
would have had a better time of it.

"Let us suppose a case as conditions now exist. Assume, for the sake
of argument, that you loved me and that you plucked from your nature
your religion, your fidelity to your house, your love for your
brother, and gave yourself to me. You would stand appalled at the
sacrifice until you realized that you had come to me only because
it would have been more difficult to stay away. You conquer the
passionate cry of love,--the strongest the human compound has ever
voiced,--and you are miserably happy for the rest of your life no
attitude being so pleasing to the soul as the attitude of martyrdom.
Many a man and woman looks with some impatience for the last good-bye
to be said, so sweet is the prospect of sadness, of suffering, of
resignation."

I was aghast at his audacity, but I saw that Chonita was fascinated.
Her egotism was caressed, and her womanhood thrilled. "Are we all such
shams as that?" was what she said. "You make me despise myself."

"Not yourself, but a great structure--of which you are but a
grain--with a faulty foundation. Don't despise yourself. Curse the
builders who shoveled those stones together."

He left her then, and she told me to go to bed; she wanted to sit a
while and think.

"He makes you think too much," I said. "Better forget what he says as
soon as you can. He is a very disturbing influence."

But she made me no reply, and sat there staring at the floor. She
began to feel a sense of helplessness, like a creature caught in a
net. It was more the man's personality than his words which made her
feel as if he were pouring himself throughout her, taking possession
of brain and every sense, as though he were a sort of intellectual
drug.

"I believe I was made from hi