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My body talks about you in the night,

My hand says soft, "His hand is like a shield."
My cheek grows warm, remembering your lips.
My arms reach blindly out into the dark;

My pulses say, "We cannot beat without him;"
And my eyes do not speak at all, for what they know
is beyond being said.

My body talks about you all night long.

I cannot sleep, my body talks so loud.

See, I lead you to my heart,

It is a winding way, the way to my heart;
It is thorn-beset and very long;

It is walled and buttressed; it is sentineled,
And none could ever find the way alone.
So take my hand,

And I will lead you to my heart.

Our hearts lie so close

That when your heart trembles,

Mine will be afraid.

Our hearts beat so near

That when your heart stirs,

Mine will hear it.

Our hearts speak so loud

That all the world must know.

I have lost track of what world I am living in

Or what day I am seeing;

I only know that there is blue about

The blue of your eyes;

I only know that there is music somewhere-
Words quick and broken that you have said.

Your parted lips hard on mine,

Your sudden arms crushing heaven into my heart, Your broken words that tell me nothing and everything

When God is thundering the last world into oblivion, And quenching the farthest star,

And putting blackness around,

We two will cling to each other.

A Man Never Gets Over It

By Cornelia A. P. Comer

(From "The Wealth of Timmy Zimmerman," in the "Atlantic Monthly.")

"I mean to have a swell home, if I am a bachelor," boasted Timmy. "I feel like I wanted it. It's just another game, I guess. But I'll play a lone hand- I don't reckon a man can be ready for matrimony when it sends cold shivers down his spine just to think of it, do you?"

Kid lowered his voice.

"Timmy, listen a minute. I'll tell you something—a man never gets over feelin' that way about it. He just has to kind of chloroform them feelings and hurry along with it. Because there ain't no doubt it's the thing to do."

Marriage, a Partnership

By Mrs. Newell Dwight Hillis

(American contemporary. From The American Woman and Her Home.'')

There is a sense in which marriage is a contract, at the same time business, moral and social. . . .

Marriage is looked upon often as the consummation of the romance of life, whereas, it is simply its beginning. It is called a matter of the heart, which it should be, but it should also be an affair of the intellect. It is fortunate that the day of early marriage has passed, since the early marriage implied a choice guided almost wholly by the emotions, as the intellect is slower in its development than the heart. But marriage should involve both heart and brain and fulfill the chief desire of both.

One of the Best Things

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(From "The Duty of Surplus Women," in "The Independent.") (See page 280)

If marriage laws are wrong, mend them. If marriage customs offend, change them. If other people's marriages do not please, improve on them. But marriage itself remains a good thing—one of the best things in the world.

What Is Love?

By Elizabeth Philip

(English contemporary. Quoted from "'Women the World

Over.")

What is Love, that all the world
Should talk so much about it?

What is Love, that neither you
Nor I can do without it?

What is Love that it should be
As changeful as the weather?
Is it joy or is it pain

Or is it both together?

Love's a tyrant and a slave,
A torment and a treasure.
Having it, you know no peace,
Lacking it, no pleasure.

Would I shun it if I could?
Faith, I almost doubt it.
No, I'd rather bear its sting,
Than live my life without it.

The Art of Loving

By Ellen Key

(Contemporary Norwegian writer. From "Love and Mar

riage.''*)

Every developed modern woman wishes to be loved not enmale, but en artiste. Only a man whom she feels to possess an artist's joy in her, and who shows this joy in discreet and delicate contact with her soul as with her body, can retain the love of the modern woman.

* J. G. Stokes Co., Pub.

A New Stimulus to Marriage

By Mrs. St. Clair Stobart

(See page 55)

As concerns marriage, if it should indeed be true that women, who can find practical work in life outside marriage, would no longer be so eager to marry, this would not necessarily be an evil, for it would probably act as an additional incentive to man to desire marriage. Marriage has been regarded for women as a profession in which failure involves, as in other professions, humiliation. Women are trained, therefore, under the present régime, to employ all the arts at their disposal to ensure success in their profession. . . If women were absorbed in professions and occupations, such as farming, architecture, territorial service, and the like, and only desired marriage when and because they loved, we Iwould have the loss in the woman of the wiles and artificialities which formerly stimulated the man, and marriage would be counterbalanced by a more healthy emulation on the part of the man, who would be desirous to obtain something of value which was difficult to get.

The Old Suffragist

By Margaret Widdemer
(See page 156)

She could have loved-her woman passions beat Deeper than theirs, or else she had not known How to have dropped her heart beneath their feet A living stepping-tone.

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