Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/51

46 adjuncts, functions and offices, yet, being human, we require a little intellect, soul and emotion with our lives; cannot be contented with body only, and feel the need of a little sour leavening to season the dry bread of earthly being. Such couples grow tired of each other; of the monotony; and either party of such a firm will strangely take to other persons who manifest qualities and powers, which, from their own state of soul-starvation, they know how to appreciate! The origin of such marriages takes its rise in physics purely. He is stout, magnetic, robust, full of fire, and passional auras envelop him round about; and passion always exaggerates both the properties and qualities of the object upon whom its eyes are cast; mentally endows it with what it has not, and never will have; and at the same time revels in an insane dream of fancied joys, destined never to be realized, because his whole being is in such a red-hot fever, that, could he actualize his desire, death would stop him instantly, because nothing human could endure such a poignancy as he hopes to enjoy.

She is young, round-limbed, rosy-cheeked, spirited, vivacious, full of health,—and from what she has learned through other females—full of curiosity as to the facts of marriage. Well, she has passed the rubicon, and they twain lengthen out their honeymoon for about a year; at the end of which time it is an old and flavorless story, and discontent comes in, because each feels the need of a little change. The upshot of such a union is that neither of them see a genuinely happy hour, till that wherein each hopes to be free from the other, and try their chances elsewhere. So much for general division number one. The next division is that which is being, with its mysteries holy and unholy—that is in its normal development, and abnormal or unhealthful one—about to be treated in the pages that follow.

XXIV. Love being much more than a mere sentiment between the sexes, it is plain that neither its ground-work, nature, or cryptic meaning, has hitherto in any land been thoroughly understood. I have for long, weary years studied it in many countries of the globe. Here and there I got—not a new idea of it, but suggestions which led me to investigate and explore. And now, in this, probably the