ncrease
in population is a menace.

I call bringing children into the world a codfish act which causes an
overflux of vulgar little earthlings, if the process be not humanised
and spiritualised. If the child is conceived not in lust but in love, it
is rightly born. If it is the child of your ideal, the offspring of that
which is your truest life, then is your progeny your immortality, and
then, and then only, have you reason for pride and joy in that which you
have caused to be.

My dear, dear Herbert, my love has not failed. This you must come to
understand. Love never fails. The children that might have been mine are
better unborn, since I could not give them a mother whom I loved. You
remind me that Dante married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and she
bore him seven children. Yet, Herbert, was this wife not mentioned in
the "Commedia," nor in "La Vita Nuova," nor anywhere else in his
writings. Dante was a Conformist. He was not in all respects above his
time; witness his theology. Convention permitted the dispassionate
marriage side by side with love. He was conventional, and the infinite
moment of meeting in paradise with his Lady was embittered by her "cold,
lessoned smiles."

"Ah, from what agonies of heart and brain,
What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This mediaeval miracle of song!"

It was for Beatrice that this man vexed his spirit with immortal effort
and raised a Titan voice which yet is heard in charmed echoes. It was
for Beatrice that he descended into the dead regions and climbed the
hills of purgatory and soared towards the Rose of Paradise,--"And 'She,
where is She?' instantly I cried."

Dante, our prince of lovers, might have lived better, but he loved well.

This in answer to your letter. To meet your argument I have found it
best to employ something of your own method, but I cannot rid myself of
the feeling that I have vulgarised the subject by saying so much about
it. I fear my letter would provoke a smile from those who know love and
the wonder of its simplicity through all the subtlety. "We, in loving,
have no cause to speak so much!" would be their unanswerable criticism.
It is easier to live than to argue about life.

The thought has suddenly assailed me that what I have said may sound
derogatory to Hester. Know, the