If I were asked to decide whether men or women have more vivid imaginations, I vow 'twould not be so difficult a situation as that in which the unfortunate Paris found himself! To the ladies would I award the apple, without a doubt!

I suppose every woman has had, at some time or other in her early life, a mental picture of what a perfect lover should be: tall, handsome, strong, kind, just the smallest touch of mystery, the epitome of honour and yet adorably human. Upon my soul, a difficult dream for us poor men to live up to!

The girl sits dreaming, and in her happy, idle moments visualizes a first meeting with this dream-god she has created. Hand in hand she wanders with him in her dream along winding, moonlit paths, waiting, thrilled and breathless for those three little words which, when spoken by him, will change this prosaic world into Fairyland.

And then one day she is acutely conscious of a small, glittering bnad on her third finger, and wonders how it has come to pass that the universe does not stand still in order to gaze enraptured on the new marvel, the perfect lover--her lover! As a matter of fact, the world has noticed the marvel, but to the girl's own friends and relations the man to whom she has become engaged is probably no more than barely good-looking, and it is extremely likely that he has some peculiarity or characteristic which they violently dislike.

Girl friends make mental resolutions that when they choose a man he shall be something quite different; already they compare their own dreams to this reality that seems to them so poor, and they smile with a certain complacent indulgence when they meet the shining eyes of the girl whose dream-lover walks by her side. Married friends are more encouraging unless, perchance, their own matrimonial venture has been unlucky, but usually their thoughts dwell on their own perfect lover, even though to others he seems but a whimsical warning of complete prosiness when seen in his own home, clad in unromantic dressing-gown and carpet slippers, grunting from the depths of a capacious arm-chair, and with, perhaps, a cold in his head or gout in his big toe. Odd's my life! what a dream man--to you!

To your thinking, in the halcyon time of your engagement, the world--your world--does not realize at once that the perfect lover of your dreams has come to life, whereas to you he has already taken on the form and shape of a hero of romance. What if he is of medium height and inclined to broadness? That only makes you realize what an odd mistake you made when you dreamt of him as one of those tall, ungainly, shapeless gawks! What if his nose be flattish and his eyes blue? Gadzooks! who would worship a hero with a bird-like beak and eyes like a savage? In your adolescent imagination you may (though you may not admit that you did!) have created a vague, godlike individual who looked like the illustration on the jacket of a sensational novel. But in the end what you have found is a perfect lover, a man whose character answers to your highest ideals of chivalry and manliness.

Is he less romantic than the gallant armoured knight of old, who rode over hill and dale in order to slay dragons, or to do battle against all those miscreants who refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of his lady's beauty? Of course he is not! See the number of very real dragons he slays every day, when poverty and disappointment and threatening ill-health menace him. See how shrewdly and yet how fairly he wields his weapons of brain and muscle against clever, doughty or wealthy rivals; and yet, withal, see how chivalrous he is towards women and how kindly and gay he can be with little children.

He is the hero of your dreams, madame, the perfect lover of your imagination. How does he stand in your eyes when, at last, you have trod with him the magic way up to the altar, and heard right through the thunder of the Wedding March the paean of your victory in winning this beau ideal for yourself against all the world? Does the glamour of him wear thin against the hard, prosaic things of everyday life? If a man cannot be a hero to his lackey, can he possibly pose unruffled and unshaken on his pedestal before his wife's clear eyes?

Do not doubt it for a moment! You need no pedestal for the man you love; all you need for him, all he wants above all other things, is a place in your heart and to live in intimate and close companionship with you. If you, in your turn, have given him love for love, and if you have had the patience and the courage to wait till he, the bridegroom of your dreams, came to you, then marriage will surely be the portal to a realm of supreme and unchanging bliss. Your perfect lover will be the perfect husband, without whom as your helpmate and friend you can never know the perfection of life or the sublimity of romance.

In the course of years, when Father Time has laid a finger on the perfect lover and he finds increasing difficulty in persuading his hair to cover the bald patch on the top of his head, Love the Alchemist, having transmuted the evanescent metal of your girlish visions into the solid gold of conjugal happiness, will touch your eyes with magic so that you will only see the strong brave, kindly soul shining through his loving eyes. If rheumatism in the joints makes him a little slower in opening the door for you than he was forty years ago, Cupid will bewitch you, while you wait, with the understanding of the fine courage and increasing tenderness which has, for a lifetime, marked him for your perfect, gentle knight.

Your world to-day is no less full of magicians, giants, witches, gnomes and fairies than it was in the legendary time of King Arthur. Luck is a magician able to change your lives from drab to gold; care is a witch who can steal your beauty and line your face in a night; despair is a giant who can torture you and hold you in his iron grip until your perfect lover and perfect husband comes to your rescue as the sublime knight-errant; rebellious, unkind thoughts are demmed unpleasant little gnomes to tease you, and friendly, happy ones are the fairies that lighten your burden while you wander down the high road of life.

The Chief Magician of them all is love, love the ruler of men, the king of all the world, whom no amount of scoffing and of sneering has ever dethroned; love the dear tyrant of my time and yours, whose light no modernism can dim; love which has brightened the lives of millions of us and whose torch will be kept aflame for all the aeons to come. Let the world sneer and laugh, but if love gives the fortunate man of your choice the divine accolade and dubs him Sir Perfect Lover, or Sir Perfect Husband, then his companionship and comradeship will make every dark hour seem bright, every sorrow endurable, every joy doubly great, all through your life and in the great unknown that is to come.