s go awry.

Poor aching, beating, human heart! It cannot reason; it cannot count the
cost. To it seems that impulse, divine and mighty impulse, is the sole
law of the earth; in time it learns that impulse, the mightiest, the
divinest, though it may be law in heaven, is sometimes a veritable
nemesis on earth: it gives freely, gladly, without compunction; it finds
the gift rewarded by consequences too pitiful for tears.

Alas, this human heart! Can no one advise it Is there no advice will help
it? Must it always go wrong, and always suffer?--Well,
--If one loves, one dare not reason; if one reasons, it is difficult to
love.

* * *

There seems to be something cosmic, something transcending the bounds of
the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this
same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a
waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an
ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in
comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the
ultra-telescopic confines of vision.

What it makes the desires and cravings of this human heart more
important, more importunate, to its owner than the measuring of the
vastest space? Why is it that the longings, the hopes, the
disappointments, the desperate aspirations, and the passionate loves of
little human hearts should cause to their possessors such prepotent
commotions, such poignant qualms? Rigel and Betelgeuse and Algol rush
through space, and about them probably circle numerous planets inhabited
by countless and curious beings, each and all, perhaps, possessing hearts
as perturbable as our own. And yet, if our own little earthly Jack
cannot get our own little earthly Jill, what cares Jack what happens to
Vega or Capella or to the great nebula in Orion? Jack wants Jill; and
that want is to Jack the only thing in the sidereal heavens that matters.

The curious and perhaps semi-comical but wholly-pathetic thing about the
whole matter is this: that though undoubtedly our little planet is part
of and has a place in this great sidereal universe, and consequently all
our Jacks and Jills are related to all the Jacks and Jills everywhere
else, yet each little human heart behaves as it were the only heart in
the sum-total of created things: if it enjoys, it calls upon all that is,
to congratulate it; if it suffers, it cries aloud to high heaven to
avenge its wrongs: it comports itsel