The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

45
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The Highland Monthly.
immediate purpose. Animals, like our own species, have
their loves and hates, their likings and repugnances. I
don't say animals die of broken hearts, though cases have
been alleged of dogs doing so, but in their sexual relations
they afford scope enough. I think, to prove whether the
affections can be medicinally changed or controlled."
" A ticklish job."
" But worth trying, considering the iiitense misery a
hopeless passion produces. Would you not say it was ?"
" Perhaps," ejaculated Richard, not half liking the
searching glance^ the Professor was casting at him.
" Men are blamed for blighting women's lives," the
Professor continued, after refilling nis pipe, " but that is a
wrong-headed view of the matter entirely. At any con -
sequences, a man is justified, I hold, in breaking off an
engagement ere it is too late ; and so with a woman.
Better one should suffer than that two should be condemned
to a life long misery. That is the growing philosophy
of the age in regard to the social condition of the country,
and it should be the unwritten law in matters of the
affections as well. By all manner of means let the world's
misery be reduced to the smallest compass."
" There's something in that, sir."
" To sum up the matter, which is, perhaps, not of much
interest to you, I will say that in affairs of the heart a man
should, at all hazards, and regardless of consequences,,
marry the woman he loves best, though it may only be at
the eleventh hour of his existence in the singular that he
makes the discovery."
"Do you think so?" queried Richard, with ill-concealed
eagerness
" It is his duty to himself and to humanity," was the
reply.
At this point in the conversation, the Professor's
countenance took upon itself an expression faultlessly con-
sistent with the benevolence of these somewhat original
and apparently disinterested views. He lay back in the
easy chair, and sent the smoke from his pipe curling