Ach! this human heart knows nothing of itself nor anything of its fellow
beating hearts. If it follows its bent, it is cracked; if it holds
itself in leash, it aches. If it calls reason to aid, its soaring hopes
are dashed, its romance spoiled, and it itself reduced to the level of a
machine that calculates. If it acts on impulse and, meeting a heart that
beats, so it thinks, in unison, unites itself with it, often enough that
other soon palpitates to a different rhythm, or itself cannot keep time,
and all things go awry.

Poor aching, beating, human heart! It cannot reason; it cannot count the
cost. To it seems that impulse, divine and mighty impulse, is the sole
law of the earth; in time it learns that impulse, the mightiest, the
divinest, though it may be law in heaven, is sometimes a veritable
nemesis on earth: it gives freely, gladly, without compunction; it finds
the gift rewarded by consequences too pitiful for tears.

Alas, this human heart! Can no one advise it Is there no advice will help
it? Must it always go wrong, and always suffer?--Well,
--If one loves, one dare not reason; if one reasons, it is difficult to
love.

* * *

There seems to be something cosmic, something transcending the bounds of
the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this
same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a
waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an
ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in
comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the