The sorrow in this case resembles that which follows on a death, but is not so uplifting and ennobling. The image of the separated wife is always present to one's eyes, and becomes idealised in memory; ugly traits are obliterated, one begins to reproach oneself, there is a painful emptiness and longing; one's soul is tom in pieces by her departure; she has carried off its finest-fibred roots, and one feels as though bleeding to death. One can no more exchange common recollections. The loss of the illusions of the first springtide of love shatters one's faith in everything. A cry of mourning rings through the universe as though an irreparable crime had been committed, such as the sin against the Holy Ghost. Love, God's creative power, the sun's warmth that fills the heavens, the origin of life has ceased to exist. Chaos and darkness resume their reign. It is a spiritual death, without comfort and without hope. Nevertheless something remains, if there ever was something there. And though both may marry again, there is a recollection of the former tie. It cannot be as though it had not been, nor be forgotten. However unpleasant the relationship may have been, still in its best hours it resembled something which is not to be found on earth. In its glorious beginning it was a Garden of Eden, such a heightening of existence that one felt nearer God. That was no optical delusion, but a higher reality. Then came the Fall and the expulsion. But the memory of the first joy remains, and it is true that a real love never ends. People ask whether it continues on the other side even when inclination has "changed its object." Probably some of it remains, but in an incomprehensible way, even if one were to suppose that the personality is resolved into several "monads," of which one seeks a similar one, and another another; and what is called love can here become friendship. According to Plato's doctrine of reminiscence and the reincarnation theory of the theosophists, one might believe that when two fall in love it is only a meeting again. And all the beauty which they then see round them is the reflection of the memories of some far beautiful land where they have met before, but which they now remember for the first time. The continual illusions of love would then be connected with experiences on the other side, which now come up in memory from the side where all is completion and beauty. Therefore we have such a terrible awakening from our dreams of happiness when we find that everything down here is distorted, everything a caricature, even love itself. =The Happiness of Love.=--Even though earthly love be a caricature or bad copy of the heavenly it has some traits of resemblance to its prototype. In the first spring-days of love there are elevated moments, in which one compassionates other mortals who are not so happy. We tremble for our blessedness, finding it not quite just; yet it is possible even to wish for a misfortune to rectify the balance.