emotion, and has led many heroes and sages into wonderful weaknesses
and follies."

"Gently, gently, Mr. Chillingly; don't exaggerate. Love, no doubt,
is--ahem--a disquieting passion. Still, every emotion that changes
life from a stagnant pool into the freshness and play of a running
stream is disquieting to the pool. Not only love and its
fellow-passions, such as ambition, but the exercise of the reasoning
faculty, which is always at work in changing our ideas, is very
disquieting. Love, Mr. Chillingly, has its good side as well as its
bad. Pass the bottle."

KENELM (passing the bottle).--"Yes, yes; you are quite right in
putting the adversary's case strongly, before you demolish it: all
good rhetoricians do that. Pardon me if I am up to that trick in
argument. Assume that I know all that can be said in favour of the
abnegation of common-sense, euphoniously called 'love,' and proceed to
the demolition of the case."

THE REV. DECIMUS ROACH (hesitatingly).--"The demolition of the case?
humph! The passions are ingrafted in the human system as part and
parcel of it, and are not to be demolished so easily as you seem to
think. Love, taken rationally and morally by a man of good education
and sound principles, is--is--"

KENELM.--"Well, is what?"

THE REV. DECIMUS ROACH.--"A--a--a--thing not to be despised. Like the
sun, it is the great colourist of life, Mr. Chillingly. And you are
so right: the moral system does require daily exercise. What can give