The Atlantic Monthly, page 9 by Various Authors
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most intimate. In one breast the true wife prepares for her husband a course of loves. Every day she offers a new heart to be won. Every day the woman he could reach is gone, and there again before him is the inaccessible maiden who will not accept to-day the behavior of yesterday. This withdrawal and advancement from height to height is true virginity, which never lies down with love but keeps him always on foot and girded for fresh pursuit. Noble lovers rely on no pledges, point to no past engagements, but prefer to renew their relation from hour to hour. The heroic woman will command, and not solicit love. Let him go, when I cease to be all to him, when I can no longer fill the horizon of his imagination and satisfy his heart. But if there is less ascension in a woman, she is no mate for an advancing man. He must leave her; he walks by her side alone. So we pass many dear companions, outgrowing alike our loves and our fears.
Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside Cæsar. In solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away; but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw, some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to whom for a little we yield more than their due.
This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthusiasm rises and lifts the subject of it. That which seems to you so base an activity is lifted above low natures. What matter, then, where