of court as not to be worth controverting, except for the opportunity
they give one of confidently making the joyous affirmation that, far
from romance being dead in our day, there never was a more romantic age
than ours, and that never since the world began has it offered so many
opportunities, so many facilities for romance as at the present time.

In fact, a very little thinking will show that of all those benefited by
"the blessings of modern science," it is the lovers of the community
who as a body have most to be thankful for. Indeed, so true is this that
it might almost seem as though the modern laboratory has been run
primarily from romantic motives, to the end that the old reproach should
be removed and the course of true love run magically smooth. Valuable as
the telephone may be in business affairs, it is simply invaluable in the
affairs of love; and mechanicians the world over are absorbed in the
problem of aerial flight, whether they know it or not, chiefly to
provide Love with wings as swift as his desire.

Distance may lend enchantment to those whom we prefer to appreciate from
afar, but nearness is the real enchantment to your true lover, and
distance is his natural enemy. Distance and the slow-footedness of Time
are his immemorial evils. Both of these modern science has all but
annihilated. Consider for a moment the conditions under which love was
carried on in those old days which some people find so romantic. Think
what a comparatively short distance meant then, with snail-paced
precarious mails, and the only means of communication horses by land,
and sailing ships by sea. How men and women had the courage to go on
long journeys at all away from each other in those days is hard to
realize, knowing what an impenetrable curtain of silence and mystery
immediately fell between them with the winding of the coach horn, or the
last wave of the plumed hat as it disappeared behind the last turning