Ever insatiably hungry is the heart of man. Pleasure is a mirage. Yet perhaps, happier is it to fall and perish in full pursuit of an ever receding pleasure than to walk inane in the beaten sand-way and--live. To do is easier than to endure: to act is easier than to wait; to roam abroad and strive is easier than to stay at home and pray; to wander amid strange scenes and stranger men, to draw the approving sword in a cause approved, to fight and die and leave his bones to bleach on Asiatic plains were easier far for Rollo’s blood than to wait and waste away secure in a feudal fortress of Normandy. At Robert’s death there were various claimants to his possessions; but, finally, owing, in great measure, to the fidelity of the regent Allan of Brittany, the dukedom was secured for William. He left the court of Paris, and soon after, taking full possession of the realm, he began to exhibit those indomitable character qualifications which together with his military education and robust physical powers led him on from conquest to conquest even unto the tragic culmination at Senlac-Hastings from which he came forth blood-baptized as William the Conqueror. THE LADY EMMA, PEARL OF NORMANDY. When Ethelred, the Saxon King of England, fled from his realm and left it to the victorious Danes, he sought refuge at the court of Richard, the fourth duke of Normandy. There he met and married the Lady Emma, sister of Duke Richard. This lady was famed for her beauty and known throughout the realm as the Pearl of Normandy. Edward of England, known in England as Edward the Confessor, was the son of Ethelred and Lady Emma; and it was upon this relationship that William, at the time of Edward’s death, laid claim to the crown. Whatever may be said of this claim, it was at least more tangible than that of Harold, son of Earl Godwin. The days have gone by when the rights of blood relationship were claims for which contending realms might squander fortunes and armies: but he who estimates the ages past by the standards of today, would better roll up and read no more the enigmatic scrolls of history. Rivers of blood have freely flowed in order that some royal rascal, slightly richer in royal rascality than a rival claimant, might win a throne. Yet we who cannot understand the code of the _Samurai_, as worked out logically today; we to whom the principles of _Bushido_, when carried to the last full measure of devotion, are fascinatingly unreal; we to whom _jun-shi_, _hari-kiri_, _seppuku_ are words ominous, indeed, but unintelligible even when translated into deed in the white light of today[A]--how shall we be able to understand or estimate aright the mysteries of the mighty past! So upon this faint claim of relationship, William, the seventh duke of Normandy, nephew of Lady Emma, Queen of England, founded his right to the English throne: and for better or worse, right or wrong, faint claim or no claim--he won. MATILDA OF FLANDERS.