The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-06-08
(By Ebert Hubbard, in New York

AiIlcIlCdI1.J
In the s~pringtime of his manhood.
August Comet, sensitive, confiding,
generous, loved a beautiful girl. She
did not share his Intellectual ambi-
tons, his divine aspiration; she was
only a beautiful animal.
Man proposes but he is not always
accepted.
She married another and Comet was
disconSOlate-for a day.
He pondered the subject, read the
lives of various great men, talked with
CoWled monks and Sundry friarS gray,
and after five years wrote out at
length the reasons why q man in or
der to accomplish a f~ar-reaching and
splendid work NUS live the life of a
Celibate.
T achieve said Comte, you
must be married to your work"
Comte lived for some time content
in his philosophy, constantly strength
ening it and buttressing it against at
tack; for we believe a thing first and
skirmish for our proof afterward.
But when past forty, and his hair
was turning to silver and crow's-feet
We're showing themselves in his fine
face. and when there was a halt in
his step and his laughter had died
away into a weary smile, Comte met
a woman whose nature was as finely
sensitive and as silkenly strong as his
own.
She had intellect, aspiration, power.
h was gentle, and a womanly wo-
matched by hers; she sym]pathized
with his highest ideal.
They loved, and they married.
h crow,s-feet disappeared from
Comets face, the halt in his step was
said that the silver in his hair was
becoming.
Shortly after, Comte set himself to
work ~overhauling all Of the foolish
things he had said about the neces-
sity of c~elibacy. He declared that a
man without his mate only stumbled
his way through life. There was the
male man and the female man., and
only by working together could these
two souls hope to progress. 1t re-
Qulres two to generate thought. COmte
felt sure that he was writing the final
word. He aVowed that there was no
more to say. He declared that should
his wife go hence the fountains of his
soul would dry UP, his mind would
famish, and the light of his life would
go out in Darkness
The gods were envious of such a
love as this.
Comics mate passed away.
He was stricken dumb: the calam-
ity was too great for speech or tears.
But five years after, he got down
his books and went Over his manu-
scripts for the third time. He revised
his philosophy of what constitutes the
true condition for the highest and
purest thought
To have known a great and exalted
love and have it fade from your grasp
and flee as shadow, living only in
memory, is the highest good, he
wrote.
A great sorrow at n stroke pur-
Chases a redemption from Ill petty
troubles; it sinks all trivial annoy
anCes into no~thingness and grants the
man lifelong freedom from all petty, !
~COrrOding cares. HIS feelings have
been II to their depths-the
plummet has ouched bottom. Fate
has done her worst; she has brought
him face to face with the Supreme
Calamity, and thereafter there is moth
ing can inspire terror.
The of a great love can
never die from out the heart. 1t af-
fords a ballast 'ga:nst all the storms
that blow. And although it leads an
unutterable sadness, it imparts an I'M
peace.
: great love, even When fully pos
sessed. tfords no complete gratifica-
ton. There is an essence in it all that
seems to be a purifying impulse tor
nobIer ~endeaNor. 1t says at y
Arise, and get thee hence, for this IS
thy rest
Where there is this haunting mem
Of a great love lost there IS al
ways IbISlNeileSS, cndIlty, ana q sym
UathE that makes the man brother to
who endure and suffer. The indl-
}.dual himself is nothing: he has
h'thing to hope for, nothing to gam,
ttt hing to win, nothing to lose; for
t.o first time and the last he has a
~~-tlshness that is wide as the world
ami wherein there is no room Tor the
Election of a wrong.
In this mo of a great love
c"rre is a n~ourishfng source OF
strength by which the possesSor lives
and works. he is in communications
elemental conditions.
Harriet Martneau was a lifelong
VI IdO~ Of the heart. That first great
passion OF her early woma1hood, the
that was lost. remained with her