subsequently that she had been sent home on the previous Wednesday,
suddenly. It appeared that I was not the only one. I left the
letter where I had placed it, at the bottom of my desk, and in
course of time forgot it. Years later I fell in love really. I sat
down to write her a love-letter that should imprison her as by some
subtle spell. I would weave into it the love of all the ages. When
I had finished it, I read it through and was pleased with it. Then
by an accident, as I was going to seal it, I overturned my desk, and
on to the floor fell that other love-letter I had written seven
years before, when a boy. Out of idle curiosity I tore it open; I
thought it would afford me amusement. I ended by posting it instead
of the letter I had just completed. It carried precisely the same
meaning; but it was better expressed, with greater sincerity, with
more artistic simplicity."

"After all," said the Philosopher, "what can a man do more than tell
a woman that he loves her? All the rest is mere picturesque
amplification, on a par with the 'Full and descriptive report from
our Special Correspondent,' elaborated out of a three-line telegram
of Reuter's."

"Following that argument," said the Minor Poet, "you could reduce
'Romeo and Juliet' to a two-line tragedy -

Lass and lad, loved like mad;

Silly muddle, very sad."

"To be told that you are loved," said the Girton Girl, "is only the
beginning of the theorem--its proposition, so to speak."