bono_? What ground had Emerson for saying that these same mornings
and evenings might be filled with "varied enchantments"? The reason,
the cause of these unknown conditions of life, was given unmistakably.
The Concord sage had virtually asserted that he, Alford Graham, would
never truly exist until his one-sided masculine nature had been
supplemented by the feminine soul which alone could give to his being
completeness and the power to attain his full development.

"Well," he soliloquized, laughing, "I have not been aware that
hitherto I have been only a mollusk, a polyp of a man. I am inclined
to think that Emerson's 'Pegasus' took the bit--got the better of him
on one occasion; but if there is any truth in what he writes it might
not be a bad idea to try a little of the kind of evolution that he
suggests and see what comes of it. I am already confident that I could
see infinitely more than I do if I could look at the world through
Miss St. John's eyes as well as my own, but I run no slight risk in
obtaining that vision. Her eyes are stars that must have drawn
worshippers, not only from the east, but from every point of the
compass. I should be in a sorry plight if I should become 'all
memory,' and from my fair divinity receive as sole response, 'Please
forget.' If the philosopher could guarantee that she also would be
'all eye and all memory,' one might indeed covet Miss St. John as the
teacher of the higher mysteries. Life is not very exhilarating at
best, but for a man to set his heart on such a woman as this girl
promises to be, and then be denied--why, he had better remain a polyp.
Come, come, Alford Graham, you have had your hour of sentiment--out of
deference to Mr. Emerson I won't call it weakness--and it's time you
remembered that you are a comparatively poor man, that Miss St. John
has already been the choice of a score at least, and probably has made
her own choice. I shall therefore permit no delusions and the growth