THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



so important a matter as the selection of a life-compan- 

 ion, every one would like to feel, in looking back from 

 the vantage-ground of middle-life, that he used a cer- 

 tain amount of selective judgment, and did not merely 

 accept, as a protozoon might do, the first mate that 

 blind chance thrust within his ken. 



Assuming that we are agreed that selection of a life- 

 companion should be made only after reasonable 

 years of discretion have been attained (but then not too 

 long deferred), are there any rules or principles that may 

 supplement the normal instincts in determining a 

 choice ? 



Few questions, perhaps, require more delicate hand- 

 ling than that, if we would avoid infringing the deep- 

 seated prejudices of our fellows. Time out of mind, in 

 the shifting mythologies of many nations, Love has 

 held secure place as a "divine" passion; and the 

 idealistic literature of many languages has fostered the 

 idea that hearts held under the spell of Cupid are ac- 

 tuated by impulses deeper and purer than the mandates 

 of reason. There are those, indeed, who would ask 

 us to believe that the romantic love of man for woman is 

 a modern endowment, developed out of the chivalric 

 customs of the Middle Ages. But no one who is fa- 

 miliar with the classical literature of Greece and Rome 

 could fall prey to such an error. The words of the an- 

 cient poets and romancers, no less than those of the 

 modern, tell of that intangible spell of gossamer that 

 binds hearts as with cables of steel; of ideal passions 

 that know not reason and brook not obstacles. 



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