Then Romance, always enterprising to the point of flightiness, suggested that, as the Golden Age had no chronology, it might safely be recast in the future, in which period she, at least, was quite as much at home as in the past. Politic Old Dame History smiled at the idea of her dealing in futures, but she did make herself responsible for the statement that the real present is infinitely more romantic than the real past. Then waxing bold she declared that, with some trifling digression, she had all along been leading men toward a purer justice more mixed with love. Of this sweeping assertion she calmly cast the burden of proof upon “my most persuasive witness, my dear old friend, Romance.” And Romance, who always begs the question, replies with a smile, “Let me tell some stories. No, I will not commence with the Greeks, they are hardly my people. Great poets may find other themes, but as for me, my humble fancy must rest upon a woman and she should be pure, sweet and gentle and brave men should bow before her. “The Grecian woman was in no way a free agent. To assert herself at all, she was obliged to be either deceitful or defiant; both attitudes are so unbeautiful! I commence with the days of chivalry, for though women were not free then, it was supposed that they ought to be, which is enough for me.” “To me,” says History, “the love stories of the days of chivalry, told as fact or as old romance, are one of the saddest issues of its universal tyranny—a tyranny of parent over child, of man over woman, of lord over serf, of king over lord, of emperor over king, of pope over emperor—a tyranny of crazy conventions and mistaken ideals over all, with mortifications of spirit a thousand times harsher than those of the flesh, which made life hideous even to its ideals.