This is one extreme, the disintegrating effect of



314 ABSENCE

different environments ; the other is the too close grow-
ing together of a pair who always share the same
daily mental food. We have pathetic examples of
that, too, in old couples, who have become so depend-
ent one upon another that when one is taken away
the other can not live alone. Touching as these cases
are, closely as they conform to the ancient ideals of
marriage, the two having become marvelously one, it
IS not our best modem conception of affinity, nor of
mental development. We have learned to respect in«
dividuality. Not only is the wife no longer the chattel
and slave of her husband, subject to his whim, molded
to his theories of life, dutiful, servient, but her con-
tribution to marital happiness has become a necessary
and positive inspiration of character and temperament.
The husband and wife of to-day are wedded sover-
eigns, each reigning over independent but allied king-
doms. She has her life where she is queen, he has
his where he is king, and the two, like Solomon and
the Queen of Sheba, in amity or in love, bring one to
the other, strange gifts of great price.
