THE NECTAR OF EROS Since man first learned to crush the purple grape and quaff the distillation from the juice thereof, the world has heard strange tales of those mysterious drinks that "make the head go 'round." From parchment scrolls and must incunabula come the voices of men long since dead and returned to the dust; from the lips of moderns and the pages of their scholarly tomes come the voices of men long since dead and returned to the dust; from the lips of moderns and the pages of their scholarly tomes come the voices of contemporary connoisseurs. And these many tongues of the ages speak of the myriad potions that make men feel silly. But all miss sight of the mountain peak in their preoccupation with the undulations of the plain. For in the whole category of intoxicants that have claimed the attention of man, from the pride of fields and vineyards that bloomed when the earth was young to the fragrant anisette of southern France and the mountain nectar of eastern Tennessee, I have found no mention of love, an inebriant more powerful than any triple - distilled concoction every conceived by man to confound the senses of his brother. It has "been said that there are dangerous lightenings in the blood of one who has imbibed generous quantities of the juice of the golden corn, but the condition of one who is supercharged with the tender passions of love has been found to be beyond the pale of human definition. He is ineffable. The sot is to the high powered lover as a cold in the head is to bronchial pneumonia. For the one, the skill of man has provided a panacea; but for the other, even proud science long ago despaired of discovering any means of salvation, the master minds of the world concurring in the belief that when one begins to tamper with the nectar of Eros, the blind Deity, he is as completely lost as the soul of Lucifer. When a young man sallies forth in the early evening to indulge the pleasures of the foaming cup, he knows that before the evening is finished he will make afool of himself, but he doesn't care. He wants to let the villagers know that he is in town and the boy friends know that he had "grown up." In the course of his carousal he slays in cold blood a song or two, spoils his own clothes and somebody else's sleep, and then stumbles home at the hour before dawn and falls over the back fence and whoops and hollers for some one of the household to come out and help him hunt for the keyhole. A few hours of troubled sleep, andthen a Bromo routes the last vestiges of the Bacchanalian revel. Albert has not died - this time. But what of the callow young Romeo who harkens to the hot surge of his romantic blood and goes to worship at the throne of Eros? His coat-tail pockets bulge with peppermints and peanuts, THE NECTAR OF EROS (CONT.) This is page ten nuts, and his only silk handkerchief, sopped with attar of roses, peeps from his breast pocket to quarrel with the color of his new Sunday shirt. A bouquet of his mother's favorite flowers reposes tenderly beneath his arm, and his heart had the levity of a toy balloon. Like the proverbial shepherd boy, picked by posts to exemplify the height of human felicity, he trips gaily to the home of his cara sposa. She, sly creature, is awaiting him in the old hammock slung beneath the apole trees in the back yard. Her new white dress is as the petals of the sego lily, and as the moon pours its mellow light through the apole blossoms, all the bewildered youth can see is a face wonderfully soft and pale as old ivory, and eyes large and soft, and lips like unto an overripe cherry cleft in the middle. She speaks in a voice rythmic as the lap of waves upon the shores of Paradise, but he has forgotten even his name, Then the damsal, in her innocent way, draws his herd to her shoulder and warbles a few random notes that sound like the low, sweet strains of an Aeolian harp. He is not quite "out"; so she squeezes his hand a few gentle squeezes and sighs a wee, wee sigh that endeth in a blush, and another well-meaning youth has passed into the land of exotic dreams, dreams more enervating and soul-sensuous than those produced by all the purple-poppy distillation ever brought out of the orient. And when, at an early hour in the morning, the youth stumbles away from the domicile of his inamorata, he knows not whether he is leading an expedition into darkest Africa or going to "play croquet on the plains of ancient Troy, He is drunk with the sweetness of it all and yearns to hide away from the busy haunts of men where he will be free to pluck posies and write poetry for the Heart and Hand Club. Such is the power of that which is brewed when man courts those who were fashioned from Adam's rib. He who would worship Bacchus is temporarily a nuisance and needs to be put to bed; but he who would kneel before Eros is ever a problem, for he becomes again a child and knows not what he does. He has been innoculated with the virus of a disease more potent than nitro-glycerine, more devasting than a Florida tornado, and more strangely sweet than the soft sweet harmony of a gentle breeze blowing through the pipes of a heavenly organ. Though the enchantments brewed by human kind may be set aside by man's volition, the wine of love is stronger than death. It is a strange wine whose fragrance permeates the senses like a strange exotic perfume, filling the heart with unconquerable yearnings, the soul with madness, and the blood with fire. David R. This is page eleven