MARRIAGE

the " Beginnings of Love," in which he finds that, as studied in minute organisms, Love is " primàrily an interchange of essences." This portion of the book — the only one that concems us hère — is exceedingly well done, and might, advantageously to myriads of young people, be reprinted (with some enlargement) as a separate volume.

It was in a much earKer book. Love* s Corning of Age, the first édition of which appeared almost twenty years ago, that Carpenter — then ahnost a voice crying in the wildemess — dealt with the questions of Sex and Marriage.

Throughout this volume is evidenced that mixture of delicacy and directness, of gentleness and force, of " sweetness and light," which is the index everjrwhere to fineness and sincerity of feeling. It is possible to disagree, but impossible not to admire the skill, courage, taste, and eamestness with which the matter is presented. He is making a by no means popular utterance, but there can be no room for doubt that he writes in the cause of a pure and noble Love.

Sex, he says, is the allegory of Love in the physical world ; ^ it is a manifestation of that désire for non-differentiatioh and absolute union of being which is the aim of Love throughout the Universe. The respective positions of man and woman in respect to it are qualitatively diBerent :

the folfilment of sex is a relief and a condensation to the

^ Love* s Càming of Age (sizth edi^on), p. ao.