again and they shall hop on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, "as you might split an egg with a hair."... After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together.... So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only, like a flat-fish and he is always looking for his other half. And when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a minute: they will pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation. It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence. "But to see her were to love her, Love but her, and love for ever." [8] Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a warm love has been won by faithful devotion. Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love, for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9] Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10] Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished "O that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her." And many will doubtless have felt "O Love! what hours were thine and mine In lands of Palm and Southern Pine, In lands of Palm, of Orange blossom, Of Olive, Aloe, and Maize and Vine." What is true of space holds good equally of time. "In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed. In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love." [11]