cumulative, since it can not be stationary. If it does not increase, it
decreases. Love, like confidence, is a plant of slow growth, and of most
exotic fragility. It must be constantly and tenderly cherished. Every
noxious and foreign element must be carefully removed from it. All
sunshine, and sweet airs, and morning dews, and evening showers must
breathe upon it perpetual fragrance, or it dies into a hideous and
repulsive deformity, fit only to be cast out and trodden under foot of
men, while, properly cultivated, it is a Tree of Life.

Your enemy keeps clear of you, not only in business, but in society. If
circumstances thrust him into contact with you, he is curt and
centrifugal. But your friend breaks in upon your "saintly solitude" with
perfect equanimity. He never for a moment harbors a suspicion that he
can intrude, "because he is your friend." So he drops in on his way to
the office to chat half an hour over the latest news. The half-hour
isn't much in itself. If it were after dinner, you wouldn't mind it; but
after breakfast every moment "runs itself in golden sands," and the
break in your time crashes a worse break in your temper. "Are you busy?"
asks the considerate wretch, adding insult to injury. What can you do?
Say yes, and wound his self-love forever? But he has a wife and family.
You respect their feelings, smile and smile, and are villain enough to
be civil with your lips, and hide the poison of asps under your tongue,
till you have a chance to relieve your o'ercharged heart by shaking your
fist in impotent wrath at his retreating form. You will receive the
reward of your hypocrisy, as you richly deserve, for ten to one he will
drop in again when he comes back from his office, and arrest you
wandering in Dreamland in the beautiful twilight. Delighted to find that
you are neither reading nor writing,--the absurd dolt! as if a man
weren't at work unless he be wielding a sledge-hammer!--he will preach
out, and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden