g it and buttressing it against attack; for we believe a thing
first and skirmish for our proof afterward. But when past forty, and his
hair was turning to silver, and crow's-feet were showing themselves in his
fine face, and when there was a halt in his step and his laughter had died
away into a weary smile, he met a woman whose nature was as finely
sensitive and as silkenly strong as his own. She had intellect,
aspiration, power. She was gentle, and a womanly woman withal; his best
mood was matched by hers, she sympathized with his highest ideal.

They loved and they married.

The crow's-feet disappeared from Comte's face, the halt in his step was
gone, the laugh returned, and people said that the silver in his hair was
becoming.

Shortly after, Comte set himself to work overhauling all the foolish
things he had said about the necessity of celibacy. He declared that a man
without his mate only stumbled his way through life. There was the male
man and the female man, and only by working together could these two souls
hope to progress. It requires two to generate thought. Comte felt sure
that he was writing the final word. He avowed that there was no more to
say. He declared that should his wife go hence the fountains of his soul
would dry up, his mind would famish, and the light of his life would go
out in darkness.

The gods were envious of such love as this.

Comte's mate passed away.

He was stricken dumb; the calamity was too great for speech or tears.

But five years after, he got down his books and went over his manuscripts
and again revised his philosophy of what constitutes the true condition
for the highest and purest thought. To have known a great and exalted love
and have it fade from your grasp and flee as shadow, living only in
memory, is the highest good, he wrote. A great sorrow at one stroke
purchases a redemption from all petty troubles; it sinks all trivial
annoyances into nothingness, and grants the man lifelong freedom from all
petty, corroding cares. His feelings have been sounded to their
depths--the plummet has touched bottom. Fate has done her worst: she has
brought him face to face with the Supreme Calamity, and thereafter there
is nothing that can inspire terror.

The memory of a great love can never die from out the heart. It affords a
ballast 'gainst all the storms that blow. And although it lends an
unutterable sadness, it imparts an unspeakable peace.

A great love, even when ful