"Verily the quiet, dreamy beauty of the night in this tropic region of Mars is beyond all power of description. The atmosphere is balmier than in the torrid zone of Earth, by reason of the greater remoteness of the sun; and the absence of all those insect-pests that make life there unendurable, especially during hours of darkness. Such nights inspire Love! Such an atmosphere makes the tender, sacred passion glow with an intensity unknown in higher and cooler latitudes. The air breathes it; the night-birds sing it; the fountains, in their rising and falling cadence, echo it from grove to grove; the moons and stars, scintillating in their ether sea of blue, excite it; even the very flowers distil it in their ravishing perfume! Ah! 't is a wondrous thing, this universal Love! A legacy of God, immutable, unchanging through the unrecorded ages on every sphere where man doth dwell. Best described as a passion of the night; as its subtle influence is strongest under a starlit sky; for doth it not droop and languish under the fierce light and blazing heat of day, requiring softer illuminants and balmier air to flourish in all its beautiful intensity! No other feeling evolved by the human mind can compare in tenderness or beauty with that of first love. He who has not known that incomparable joy-sorrow, knows not what it is to live; for of all the feelings that animate the human breast it is at once the most tender, the most pure, full of innocence, yet heavy with primordial sin, selfish, yet generous; passionate, yet without lust; divine, yet human!
"But here my reverie in Siccoth's arbour was broken by the foot-falls of Volinè, and in a few moments she was by my side.
"'Ah, Harry, dear; so thou art communing with thyself, or maybe with the stars. Dost thou still cherish love for that Mother Earth, shining so witchingly fair above thee, or for anyone that doth dwell thereon? A woman?'
"'Nay, nay, my darling,' I answered, drawing her gently to my breast, and planting a kiss on her lips as I spoke, 'I have no thoughts away from you. You are the nucleus of them all, their one inspiration. I was musing to myself on Love--ah! Volinè, even on first love; the tender passion you, and you alone, have inspired within me. And I mused on the exceeding beauty of this wondrous thing, and of its universality; until your footsteps broke the thread of my reverie, and swept away the one sorrow-cloud that tinged my bliss and transformed it into perfect joy.'