age yoke without the restraint of
reason. Law and order disappeared and social chaos reigned. The land
was filled with the wailings of orphans whose parents had deserted
them, and men and women formed new associates every day. Unbridled
license devastated the country. Our lawgivers re-established the law
of marriage as being the only law suitable to mankind. Man in the
aggregate had not developed to a state in which the consummation of
marriage could be dispensed with. Yet there were many among those who
had advocated ideal love worthy of their theory. Although married to
each other, they had remained celibates. For these Egyplosis was
founded, for the study and practice of what is really a higher
development of human nature and in itself an unquestionable good. It
is the most powerful element in the production of creative energy of
soul and personal beauty. As you will have observed, all our devotees
are singularly beautiful in form and feature and possess spirit power
to a high degree."

As the goddess spoke a few threads of her bright blue hair had strayed
across her face. Her beautiful eyes flashed with a royalty of truth,
tenderness, magnetism, and feeling. She was the living illustration of
her claims for Egyplosis.

"What you say," I replied, "illustrates that ordinary marriage, with
all its limitations and, infelicities, is absolutely necessary for the
well-being of society. Marriage is simply the application of reason
and morality to blind, passionate nature. The home circle is the
origin of nationality, progress, and wealth. Ideal love, wrested from
the dragon of difficulty, is, I think, but rarely tasted in so real,
so practical an institution. This is the experience of the nations of
the outer world, and how much better for man that it is so? A roadway
in proportion to its rhythm of undulation becomes useless, hindering
travel rather than accelerating it. So also with love. When settled in
the calm security of marriage the mind is freed from the romantic
extravagance, the torture, the delight of hopeless sentiment. Thus men
are free to devote themselves to the more serious purposes of life and
achieve wealth and fame for themselves and their families. I am,
nevertheless, curious to see how your institution is conducted, for
hopeless love seems to me one of the most disquieting things in life.
Its victims, happy and unhappy, resisting passion with regret or
yielding with remorse, are ever on the rack of tor