Of new acquaintances one can never be sure because one likes them one day that it will be so the next. Of old friends one is sure that it will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honey-moon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic - the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which make the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.

So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.