ourselves from the seemingly hopeless complications of sexual instincts
and relations? Are we not still far from the adjustment of passions,
arising much too early and continuing much too long? physical and
mental desires, affections misplaced, extinguished and transferred to
others? and children who must be fed? Should we desire to add to these
problems the complications of strong friendships which might perhaps
transform and divert our entire nature? Let each, who feels an honest,
strong, profound, budding passion for a being of opposite sex sprouting
within himself be grateful. The more so if he is not confronted by
abysses all too deep, by doors all too closely barred and by deserts
all too barren; if in this other soul he can detect feelings somewhat
akin to his own. To expect, besides, exalted friendships between those
of equal sex is imputing too much power and good will to the Deity in
whose hand we live.

For me, then, it was not Alice or Bertha, - but Emmy, and more
particularly Emmy Tenders, the daughter of an English-Scotch merchant,
who of all human beings seemed to me the most interesting and worth
knowing. I really cannot say whether she was pretty or whether others
considered her so. She interested me in such strong and intense degree
that it never occurred to me to look at her from an æsthetically
critical standpoint. I remember that I was interested and surprised
when, after I had already known her over a year, I heard an old
gentleman referring to her as "that lovely child." It flattered me like
a personal compliment, but it sounded wholly new to me.

I know that she was lithe and yet quite robust, that she had light
grayish-blue eyes and an abundance of thick blonde hair that framed her
face in heavy waves. It is quite impossible for me to say or to give
even an intimation of what it was that so attracted me in her. I saw