othing seems to break down the barriers of sense. The human heart beats
its ineffectual wings in vain against the walls of its fleshly
tabernacle. Will nothing unite the Boy and the Girl? Will nothing bring
the Man and the Woman really together? Yet the Boy thinks that, were the
Girl wholly his, he and she would be happy; and the Man thinks that, were
the Woman and he to share every thought and every emotion, he and she
would want naught else. Is the amalgamation impossible? Is the
coalescence of thought and feeling outside the bounds of human
possibility? What, then, impels mankind to crave it, to attempt it, to
sacrifice so much for it?--There is a cosmic puzzle here with which nor
philosophy nor psychology nor religion has yet attempted to grapple.

After all, pitiful as it may be, lamentable as it may be, it is true, and
it must be said, that this human heart of ours goes through life hungry,
very hungry and unappeased. For what it hungers, what it has missed,
whereto it looks for sustenance, it itself does not know. Thus,

This feminine heart sighs without ceasing for because that other
masculine heart upon which it staked all its all, and an all that meant
so much, proved callous and indifferent;

That masculine heart ceases not to curse itself for resorting to such
hasty and violent methods by which to obtain for itself an ephemeral and
passing pleasure;

This feminine heart eats out its life with remorse for because it gave
itself so unthinkingly when asked; though of a survey it thought that
asking was a thing prompted by impulses as noble as they seemed divine;
and

That masculine heart, when the tidal wave of heated passion has subsided,
wonders how it was led captive by lures so deceptive and untried.

M regrets, and regrets in vain, that he did not await a purer and more
permanent passion; and

N chews for a life-time the cud of persistent remorse for an hour's
poignant pleasure.

Ach! this human heart knows nothing of itself nor anything of its fellow
beating hearts. If it follows its bent, it is cracked; if it holds
itself in leash, it aches. If it calls reason to aid, its soaring hopes
are dashed, its romance spoiled, and it itself reduced to the level of a
machine that calculates. If it acts on impulse and, meeting a heart that
beats, so it thinks, in unison, unites itself with it, often enough that
other soon palpitates to a different rhythm, or itself cannot keep time,
and all thing