he thing is too horribly dismal for words. Not all
the native sentimentalism of man can overcome the distaste and boredom
that get into it. Not all the histrionic capacity of woman can attach
any appearance of gusto and spontaneity toit.

An estimable lady psychologist of the American Republic, Mrs. Marion
Cox, in a somewhat florid book entitled "Ventures into Worlds," has a
sagacious essay upon this subject. She calls the essay "Our Incestuous
Marriage," and argues accurately that, once the adventurous descends
to the habitual, it takes on an offensive and degrading character. The
intimate approach, to give genuine joy, must be a concession, a feat of
persuasion, a victory; once it loses that character it loses everything.
Such a destructive conversion is effected by the average monogamous
marriage. It breaks down all mystery and reserve, for how can mystery
and reserve survive the use of the same hot water bag and a joint
concern about butter and egg bills? What remains, at least on the
husband's side, is esteem--the feeling one, has for an amiable aunt.
And confidence--the emotion evoked by a lawyer, a dentist ora
fortune-teller. And habit--the thing which makes it possible to eat the
same breakfast every day, and to windup one's watch regularly, and to
earn a living.

Mrs. Cox, if I remember her dissertation correctly, proposes to
prevent this stodgy dephlogistication of marriage by interrupting its
course--that is, by separating the parties now and then, so that neither
will become too familiar and commonplace to the other. By this means,
she, argues, curiosity will be periodically revived, and there will be
a chance for personality to expand a cappella, and so each reunion will
have in it something of the surprise, the adventure and the virtuous
satanry of the honeymoon. The husband will not come back to precisely
the same wife that he parted from, and the wife will not welcome
precisely the same husband. Even supposing them to have gone on
substantially as if together, they will have gone on out of sight and
hearing of each other, Thus each will find the other, to some extent
at least, a stranger, and hence a bit challenging, and hence a bit
charming. The scheme has merit. More, it has been tried often, and with
success. It is, indeed, a familiar observation that the happiest couples
are those who are occasionally separated, and the fact has been embalmed
in the trite maxim that absence makes the heart grow