A wise old philosopher was walking through the park with a young man and his true love when they came upon a beautiful statue of a Nereid. "Come here," he said to the youth, "and touch this statue." The young man put his hand on the statue's arm and felt of it closely, though he did not seem surprised at what he found. "Now the girl," the old man continued; so the lover also felt of his girlfriend's arm, in the same way. "And now," the man said, "tell me what you have learned."
"I'm not sure," the young man began. "The statue is hard and cold; the girl is warm and soft. Her flesh yields when I press; the marble does not."
"You have learned well," concluded the philosopher, "and if each of you remembers and lives by these truths, you will have a happy life together."
How Sir Philo Married a Beautiful Princess
Instead of the Woman He Loved
Once upon a time—and it had to be pretty long ago, as you will see—there lived a bunch of people in a little inland kingdom. The king, Cleon the Modest, was basically a good fellow, though he was not known for his brilliance in government. Instead, he was known chiefly for his glowing and nubile daughter, Jennifrella, a girl, though proud and a trifle petulant, so freighted with beauty and charms that pretty much every bachelor—and not a few married men—in the kingdom dreamed about her, whether awake or asleep. Truly, she maketh my pen tremble even as I write this.
Now Cleon was desirous of marrying off this legendary beauty as soon as possible so that he could be free of the constant entreaties for her hand, free of the frequent bills for supplying her dressing table, and free to spend more time in his rose garden, which he truly loved. The king would have had little trouble choosing the richest suitor in the kingdom for his daughter, except that there were no exceptionally wealthy bachelors in the realm, and those of modest wealth all had castles and money boxes of essentially similar dimensions.
For her part, the Princess Jennifrella was repletely enamored of Sir Fassade, a handsome, dashing, suave, carefree young knight who most people, when they faced reality, agreed would almost certainly become her husband and therefore the next king.
King Cleon, however, was desirous of exercising his regal authority in having a say in who would follow him on the throne. And faced with what he clearly saw was an impossible number of choices, he therefore sought the opinion of his favorite advisor, the young Sir Philo. Now, persons of a cynical bent might begin to think that Sir Philo, an eligible bachelor himself and not at all impervious to feminine gorgeousness, would argue craftily that he himself was the most suitable and worthy candidate. This might have been so but for two equally powerful reasons. First, Sir Philo, brave, skilled, and thoughtful, was a man of integrity who would never abuse his position as the king's advisor to advance his own interests, even in a matter so emotionally and biologically compelling as that before us. The other reason is that Sir Philo was already in love with another. It was a gentle love, like a deep river, quiet and calm on the surface but fully substantial and powerful in its flow.
His happiness, the Lady Lucinda, though not of outward visage the equal of Jennifrella, was handsome enough for the young knight's daydreams. When asked what attracted him to Lucinda, he would answer ambiguously or mutter something about the light in her eyes. What joy he got sitting with her under a tree in the bright spring, gazing upon her and dallying with her fingers or brushing a love-sick gnat from her collar. But what really twirled Sir Philo's cuff links was Lucinda's wit, her laugh, her playfulness. He relished taking the sprightly maid hand in hand on long walks, listening to the music of her voice and to the sentiments accompanying the music. How he loved to play with her tresses, or when her hair was up, to steal up behind her and kiss her unexpectedly on the back of the neck: for she would invariably produce a little shriek of surprise and delight and embarrassment, and then turning to him, her cheeks glowing irresistibly, attempt to glare and call him "monster," only to spoil her mock anger by bursting into giggles or even outright laughter. She would chide him and call him "rogue," and "impertinent," and he would say something like, "I'll put a stop to this abuse," and then their lips, who were old friends by now, would once again meet for fellowship. Of course, Lucinda would struggle just enough to enhance the enjoyment, until laughter or an unexpected visitor broke their embrace.
Well, enough mush. The point is that an unspoken understanding had developed between them so that only a few months after the rest of the kingdom knew it, they realized that they would one day wed and together laugh and cry through the years until death should wake them.