It reigns in very truth predominant, this ideal love to which space exists not and propinquity is nothing; and it will have none for its subjects but those who by bereavement or aspiration or intense purity are inly prepared for its dominion. Happy therefore are the shy if in the midst of their tribulation they are guided to the gateway of so bright a kingdom. It may well be that we must first be led thither by some dear-remembered and virgin form once almost ours through earthly love, but now joined to us only by an imperishable and mystic union. Our sight may at first need the embodied beauty to give it the finer powers by which the revelation of the ideal grows familiar to us, but is at last attainable without mortal intervention by an immediate flight of the soul. Until that late day of enlightenment we must still be set upon the celestial path by a touch of human tenderness; a pure yet sensuous yearning must be ours when we are first girded to the ascent. If there are beings which attain the fulness of the ideal love without the first inspiration of a fair earthly form I know nothing in creation to which they may be likened, nor had I ever part in so rare an enfranchisement. The vision that now entrances my soul first arose from a living, breathing form radiant with earthly brightness and instinct with every charm which brings men fawning to the feet of women. The sensuous frenzy which lovers sing was also mine, the tremor of the heart, the vibration of the very life; the deep seventh wave of passion rioted through me also. But from the first amazement of the shaken being it was not given me to pass through satisfaction into tranquillity; I was held long in a whirl of trouble; in the anguish of denial I learned initiation into the mystery which is eternal and supreme. It is good for some of earth's children that passion should be stayed before it makes ashes of the fancy; for if it does but touch for a moment only to be withdrawn for ever, it does not destroy, but by its meteoric passage kindles the imagination with the glow of an incorruptible flame. It is with them long enough to brand upon memory the image which, though never renewed before their bodily eyes, by its very severance from perception puts on an immortality of virginal grace. Love is understanding, said the poet of Heaven and Hell, and love ennobled through renunciant years shall at the last encompass the world. The sensuous glow that first quickened the heart of youth is transmuted into a purer fire akin to that which moves the spheres.