flash--and forever!

Twenty-five years!

It seems like a thousand, so much have we seen and felt and done in that
busy enchanted quarter of a century. And yet how quickly the time
has sped!

And now I must endeavor to give some account of our wonderful inner
life--_a deux_--a delicate and difficult task.

There is both an impertinence and a lack of taste in any man's laying
bare to the public eye--to any eye--the bliss that has come to him
through the love of a devoted woman, with whose life his own has
been bound up.

The most sympathetic reader is apt to be repelled by such a
revelation--to be sceptical of the beauties and virtues and mental gifts
of one he has never seen; at all events, to feel that they are no
concern of his, and ought to be the subject of a sacred reticence on the
part of her too fortunate lover or husband.

The lack of such reticence has marred the interest of many an
autobiography--of many a novel, even; and in private life, who does not
know by painful experience how embarrassing to the listener such tender
confidences can sometimes be? I will try my best not to transgress in
this particular. If I fail (I may have failed already), I can only plead
that the circumstances are quite exceptional and not to be matched; and
that allowances must be made for the deep gratitude I owe and feel over
and above even my passionate admiration and love.