Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/115

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110
Affectional Alchemy.

He stays but a moment near,
When that flush fadeth,
Though true affection's tear
Her soft eyelid shadeth.
 
"He goes from her chamber straight
Into life's jostle;
He meets at the very gate
Business and bustle;
He thinks not of her within,
Silently sighing;
He forgets, in that noisy din,
That she is dying.
 
"And when her heart is still,
What though he mourneth,
Soon from his sorrow chill
Wearied he turneth.
Soon o'er her buried head
Memory's lights setteth,
And the true-hearted dead
Thus man forgetteth."

But it won't be so when both sides have found out, as a rule and law, that no happiness is direct, although joy may be—but always reflected; in other words, that to be happy, and loved, we must first love and render happy some other soul. This is the eternal law of Love's equation, and is as absolute, rigid, and unalterable, as are the laws of number, reflection and gravitation.

We all need, at times, a little, and occasionally a good deal of, coaxing. We are a perverse set, and oftentimes refuse to do the very identical thing others want, and we ourselves are aching, dying, to do, simply because some witling has not sense enough to coax us; and many a good man, and better woman, has been suffered to gallop straight into the jaws of death, right into the mouth of hell, for want of a little, gentle persuasion, even of the blarney sort; especially is this true of men, even quite as much as of the other sections of the human being.

I believe the only physician who has been known to condemn exercise was Cardenus, a physician of Milan. He exclaims against