they realize that in time mankind may feed
those creative fires, becoming, who knows, stronger than the great first
cause itself."

"And I have been called an egoist," murmured Gwynne. "I feel a
mere--well--Leghorn--beside this sublime determination to sit upon the
throne of God and administer to both kingdoms. All the same, my fair
cousin, I believe that it takes a man and a woman to complete the ego. I
incline to the picturesque belief that they were originally united, and
halved in some--well, say when Earth and its atmosphere became two
distinct parts. No doubt it was a judgment for having accomplished too
much evil in that formidable combination. Who knows but that may be the
secret of the fall of man; the uneven progress of human nature may be
towards the resumption of that state, only to be attained when we have
conquered the worst in ourselves and become pure spirit."

"That fits my own theory, for I believe that the two parts of what
should have been a perfect whole were cut in two for their sins, and
that reunion will come only when each has absolutely mastered the human
evil in him and freed the spiritual, but this he can only accomplish
alone--"

"Don't quote Tolstoi to me! He waited until he was old and cold to hurl
anathema against the human passions. Theories upon love by a man long
past his prime are as valueless as those of a girl."

"It was a theory I had no intention of advancing. I think for myself and
pay no more attention to the excessive virtue bred by the years than to
that equally illogical repentance or awakening of a woman's moral nature
when the man has ceased to charm or has disappeared. That is a mere
process, and no augury of future behavior. But you are always at your
best when you go off at half-cock like that! What I meant was that woman
has degenerated, not through passion but through ages of the exercise of
her pettier and meaner qualities. In some, these qualities lead to
malignancy, in the majority, no doubt, to frivolity--still worse, to my
puritanical inheritance--and they are utterly commonplace of outlook.
Matrimony keeps these qualities in constant exercise, because the ego
loses its independent life, its habit of meditation, and is pin-pricked
twenty times a day. It is by these qualities that woman chains man to
the earth, not by her human passions. I am quite willing to concede that
passion is magnificent."

Gwynne ground his teeth. He had never encountered anything so