elf a perfect mate, who is the mother of his children, and yet be
unfaithful to her--not with any woman who crosses his path and beckons,
but with the _One_ who appeals to the wild, romantic adventurer which is
also part of his nature, though neither the best part, nor the strongest.
But I cannot imagine a man adoring and respecting a woman who is not his
wife the while he loves with a burning passion another woman who promises
rapture, passion, and delight. Passion is so intense while it lasts that
there is in the heart of man no equal place for another woman who holds
him by no legal and moral tie. But a man, having a double nature, can
worship his wife, yet love with passion another woman--even though he
hates and despises himself for so doing. But it is rare, if not
impossible, for one woman to completely satisfy the man whose nature is
made up of good and bad, of high ideals and low cravings, of steadfast
fidelity, yet with a yearning for the wild, untrammelled existence of the
mountain tops. With such a man--and how many there are, if we but
knew!--the woman he respects will always win in the end, even though the
woman who entices has also her day of victory. The Good Woman will
suffer--God knows she will! But the man will suffer too. A man has to
be wholly bad to thoroughly enjoy evil. The man who is only half a
saint--secretly goes through hell. That is his punishment, and it is far
more difficult for him to bear than the finger pointed in contempt.
Therefore, I believe that the happiest men and women are the men and
women who are born good and steadfast, simple and true, or those who
cultivate with delight scarcely one unselfish thought. That is why the
vast majority of people live so really lonely, so secretly sad at heart
and soul. Only the born-good or the born-bad know the blessedness of
inner peace.

_Our "Secret Escapes"_

I suppose that we all of us have our own little secret
"dream-sanctuary"--our way-of-escape which nobody knows anything about,
and by which we go when we are weary of the trivialities of the domestic
hearth and sick unto death of the "cackle-cackle" of the crowds. When we
are very young we long to share this secret little dream-sanctuary with
someone else. When we are older and wiser, we realise that if we don't
keep it to ourselves we are spiritually lost; for, with the best
intentions in the world, the best-beloved, to whom in rapture we give the
key, either, metap