because it has sprung from the horrid heat of the compost; but who shall
think of the one in the presence of the pure beauty of the other?

Nature and art are entirely unlike each other, though the one simulates
the other. The art of beauty in writing, said Balzac, is to be able to
construct a palace upon the point of a needle; the art of beauty in
living and loving is to build all the beauty of social life and
aspiration upon the sordid yet solid and persisting instincts of
savagery that lie deep at the bottom of our gross natures.

* * * * *

Now, it is in this tender sacred atmosphere, such as Mr. and Mrs.
Youngwed always pass through, that the man worthy of a woman's
confidence finds the radiant ideal of his heroine. He may with propriety
speak of these transfigured personalities to his intimates or write of
them with kindly pleasantry and suggestion as, perhaps, this will be
considered. But, there is a monitor within that restrains him from
analyzing and describing and dragging into the glare of publicity the
sacred details that give to life all its secret happiness, faith and
delight. To do so would be ten times worse offense against the ethics of
unwritten and unspoken things than describing with pitiless precision
the death beds of children, as Little Nell, Paul Dombey, Dora, Little
Eva, and, thank heaven! only a few others.

How can anybody bear to read such pages without feeling that he is
an intruder where angels should veil their faces as they await the
transformation?

"It is not permitted to do evil," says the philosopher, "that good may