DEARLY love a cheerful optimist 

 a man who can fix his gaze on a will- 

 o'-the-wisp, or glow-worm in the 

 blackest midnight, and persuade him- 

 self and others that it is high noon 

 that the world is "dark with excess of bright." 

 Sure 't is better to laugh than to be sighing 

 Democritus is preferable to Heraclitus Jt> It is 

 more pleasant to seek and commend virtue than 

 to hurl anathemas at vice. Why, it may well be 

 asked, should a man gaze into a cesspool when he 

 may look at the stars ? 



Marius and Cosette may dream away an hundred 

 sensuous summer nights hidden in the boskage, 

 satisfied with their own fond imaginings ; but rob 

 them of the halo of romance, destroy the airy pal- 

 ace in which they live and love, and there's 

 naught left but a solfatara of lust. Romance is not 

 alone the corolla of love ; it is the very incense of 

 virtue. So long as it envelops man & woman, they 

 wander far above the crass animalism of the world. 



W. C. B R A N N 



