of a vow. For what could be more maddening than an existence in which
our mother or aunt received the information that we were going to
assassinate the King or build a temple on Ben Nevis with the genial
composure of custom?

The revolt against vows has been carried in our day even to the extent
of a revolt against the typical vow of marriage. It is most amusing to
listen to the opponents of marriage on this subject. They appear to
imagine that the ideal of constancy was a yoke mysteriously imposed on
mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently
imposed by all lovers on themselves. They have invented a
phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two
words--'free-love'--as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free.
It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage
merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word.
Modern sages offer to the lover, with an ill-flavoured grin, the largest
liberties and the fullest irresponsibility; but they do not respect him
as the old Church respected him; they do not write his oath upon the
heavens, as the record of his highest moment. They give him every
liberty except the liberty to sell his liberty, which is the only one
that he wants.

In Mr. Bernard Shaw's brilliant play 'The Philanderer,' we have a vivid
picture of this state of things. Charteris is a man perpetually
endeavouring to be a free-lover, which is like endeavouring to be a
married bachelor or a white negro. He is wandering in a hungry search
for a certain exhilaration which he can only have when he has the
courage to cease from wandering. Men knew better than this in old
times--in the time, for example, of Shakespeare's heroes. When
Shakespeare's men are really celibate they praise the undoubted