"The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the fewest
thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."--SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ:
The Life of Adam.

I

It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course.  There were
enough difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few
stings of annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure.
But a good memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of
straining out all the beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little
jars of pure hydromel.  As we look back at our six weeks in Norway,
we agree that no period of our partnership in experimental
honeymooning has yielded more honey to the same amount of comb.

Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
experimentally rather than chronologically.  We started from the
self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in
married life.

"It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose
that a thing like that can be fixed by the calendar.  It may
possibly fall in the first month after the wedding, but it is not
likely.  Just think how slightly two people know each other when
they get married.  They are in love, of course, but that is not at
all the same as being well acquainted.  Sometimes the more love, the
less acquaintance!  And sometimes the more acquaintance, the less
love!  Besides, at first there are always the notes of thanks for
the wedding-presents to be written, and the letters of
congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard to make each
one sound a little different from the others and perfectly natural.
Then, you know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of being
newly married.  You run across your friends everywhere, and they
grin when they see you.  You can't help feeling as if a lot of
people were watching you through opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots
at you with a kodak.  It is absurd to imagine that the first month
must be the real honeymoon.  And just suppose it were,--what bad
luck that would be!  What would there be to look forward to?"

Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
Diotima.

"You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for
clear argument.  Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to
get married in the first week of December, as we did!--what becomes
of the chronological honeymoon then?  There is no fishing in
December, and all the rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude,
are frozen up.  No, my lady, we will discover our month of honey by
the empirical method.  Each year we will set out together to seek it
in a solitude for two; and we will compare notes on moons, and
strike the final balance when we are sure that our happiest
experiment has been completed."

We are not sure of that, even yet.  We are still engaged, as a
committee of two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline
to make anything but a report of progress.  We know more now than we
did when we first went honeymooning in the city of Washington.  For
one thing, we are certain that not even the far-famed rosemary-
fields of Narbonne, or the fragrant hillsides of the Corbieres,
yield a sweeter harvest to the busy-ness of the bees than the
Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes yielded to our idleness in the
summer of 1888.